


To Fall

by rustingroses



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, Fear of Falling, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, job fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-22
Updated: 2010-10-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 02:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 42,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9858092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rustingroses/pseuds/rustingroses
Summary: Parker's job isn't to fall, it's to fly, to defy the impossible and exceed expectations. When a mission goes wrong, however, it seems that Parker's going to need some help getting back on her feet.





	1. Chapter 1

She breathed in and out, slowly, as she'd been taught.

There was peace.

There was serenity.

There was quiet.

There was a grunt of effort beside her.

She ignored it; he'd either stick around, or he wouldn't. She rather thought he would. There were few things that he treated more seriously than learning something new about his body, and besides, he'd been the one that asked for the lessons in the first place. He had never been the type to just give up.

Even so, in a rare moment of abstract kindness, she paused for just a moment between moves, giving him a chance to catch his breath. She of all people knew how difficult yoga could be- hadn't she spent two hours a day for the better part of two years simply becoming as limber as was possible and then an additional four hours working on every type of gymnastics and martial art that might help her in her ability to thieve?

With absolute calm, she moved slowly until her forearms were parallel again the floor. Keeping her gaze firmly against the hardwood whose patterns she had memorized the first time she'd done this, she walked her legs forward until her hips and back were stretched right up to their limits. There was a hissed breath as the man beside her came to realize that- as with the previous moves- this was not nearly as easy as she made it look.

Kicking her legs up, she made sure to hold them perfectly still, breathing continuing soft and unstrained, a marked difference from the panting from the man next to her. Even now she ignored it, holding the position without any conscious effort as his legs wavered back and forth dangerously before he managed to steady himself. Even then, there was a marked difference between their postures.

She considered warning him about the next part, and then stopped herself before the words escaped. She'd already warned him before they even started these lessons that she was planning on going through all her normal exercises each time, and that he should stop when he'd reached his limit. When she'd informed him that if he strained himself, it was his fault, he'd sharply answered that he knew exactly how much his body could take, thanks, and he'd been working his body far longer than she had, missy, so if they could get on with it, he'd appreciate it.

She didn't take offense, not really, despite the harsh tone. He'd asked in the first place after all, which spoke loudly enough for even her to hear. So she only spent another heartbeat in that pose, hardly daring to glance over at her partner, knowing all to clearly what she'd see- trembling limbs, skin damp with sweat, a red face, that long hair pulled back, the intense concentration, that little furrow in his brow that she didn't even think he knew he made. All that- it wasn't supposed to be alluring. It wasn't supposed to make her extremities tingle.

Though, to be fair, that was more than likely the feeling of her blood rushing from her toes to her head and the fact that she was resting all her weight on her forearms.

Yeah, it was probably the yoga.

With exquisite precision, she slowly bent her knees back towards her head, looking up as she did so, entire body contorting into a backwards 'c' in midair, even as she still used her forearms as a platform. As was proper, she kept her toes together, letting her knees slide apart ever so slightly. Now her body showed the efforts of her exertion, a proper sweat breaking out across her back and arms as she fought to keep herself both up and properly positioned.

She grinned at herself in the mirror.

It was about this time that Eliot fell over.

He let out a string of curses as he did so, landing in a tangled heap on the floor, limbs twisted around him awkwardly. She couldn't help but stare at him in the mirror; Eliot was almost never anything less than fluidly and frighteningly powerful, but now he just looked like an overgrown puppy, stumbling over its own paws. With much muttering and heated words and general bad humor, Eliot righted himself and sat cross legged on the floor, frowning as Parker smoothly raised her legs and tipped them back. They hit the ground with hardly a sound of impact, and she half-turned, sitting back on her heels with ease.

Parker's hands came up instantly to support her face, elbows resting on her knees. "What?" Eliot demanded, not caring if he sounded harsh. When Parker's face fell a little, however, Eliot regretted it. Parker was like a little kid, or an injured animal, who didn't understand why others were causing it pain. It was pitifully adorable when it wasn't so damn annoying. "You're staring at me like I've grown an extra head," he continued gruffly, looking away.

Parker shook her head. "Not that I can see," she admitted after a moment's pause, sounding too guileless. Eliot looked at her sharply, then rolled his eyes when he saw the humor glittering in her own blue ones. "That wasn't as bad as usual," she said after another moment of stilted silence, a shy little smile on her face. She hoped that she'd phrased that correctly. Compliments weren't exactly her forte. It was true, though- this was the first time he'd been able to keep up almost the entire time with her instead of dropping out and reverting to the less complex moves to finish out their session.

"Thanks, I think," Eliot said dryly, though he was secretly pleased that she'd thought to comment on his performance at all. When he'd first asked her to teach him yoga in an effort to raise his limberness, he hadn't exactly gone in expecting to be congratulated at every turn. It was his job to always be on the top of his game physically, though. If that meant a little time with the most insane person he knew in order to learn something that would keep the team safe, well, it was worth it. Of course, it had more practical side effects as well. It not only helped him stay in shape, but it also got Nate and Sophie off his back- not that they even had a real reason to insist that Parker and Eliot spend time together, as though they were errant siblings who bugged the crap out of one another; in his opinion, they were taking the family thing a touch too far. Besides, weren't siblings _supposed_ to drive each other up the wall? Or off the edge of a cliff? Hardison _alone_ was annoying enough to drive Eliot to murder, and Parker was not much lower on the list of People Who Make Me Want to Start Bashing Heads.

"You're welcome," Parker said simply, and then stood, sprinting across the large, empty room and launching herself into the air in the cleanest aerial Eliot had been privileged to see in a long time. She flipped over herself neatly, hands tucked in against her body. She landed just in front of the door, feet close together to give her balance, but not the ridiculous feet-together bullshit professional gymnasts did. Instead, Parker landed with her feet more widespread, so as to go from her landing directly into another motion; the wider stand would also give her the extra balance that she would need if someone attacked her as she came out of the movement.

It was...impressive, and Eliot found himself less reluctant to admit it than usual.

Parker's mouth curled in a self-satisfied smile before she winked at Eliot. Her head was tilted, her lashes lowered; it would have been coy on anyone else, but this was _Parker_ that Eliot was staring at. She wouldn't know coy if it danced on a barstool naked.

"You know, if you want to, we could spar sometimes. You know enough to defend yourself if you get caught, but I could teach you a couple of tricks." The words were out of Eliot's mouth even before he had considered them, bypassing his brain entirely. Parker stared at him, mouth dropping open in complete shock. He felt vaguely offended at the expression, and added both belatedly and considerably more angrily than he had intended to, "God, it was just a suggestion. I figured it would be fair trade for the yoga lessons, but hey, you don't have to look at me like I'm a complete idiot." He stormed forward, intending to brush past her, maybe purposefully bump her on the way out in a fashion he _knew_ was childish and ridiculous but that he couldn't help but want to do anyways. It wouldn't leave any lasting marks, at any rate. She didn't have the right to judge him, not when he consistently saved her ass- saved all of their asses.

So intent was his on his own anger that he missed the high blush that made its way across Parker's face. She knew as well as anyone that as small and slight as she was, well, it was simply best not to get caught. Security guys tended to be male, big, and bulky. If they got a good grip on her, it was all over, because she didn't have the height or the weight to take them on. Archie had dismissed the concern entirely; he'd always taught her that the best thieves were never caught, and he was training her to be the best- besides, if she was caught, there were other skills she could take advantage of, including her speed and the tools of the trade, like rappelling or disappearing in plain sight or using the other weapons at hand as a distraction. The one time she'd brought it up, he'd questioned her as to her skills in the fighting department, which were measly at best- mostly she'd learned to throw punches to stop guys who didn't know what 'no' meant, a couple of ways to break out of holds when she'd been on the streets. She knew how to inflict the most pain with the least amount of effort- eyes, groins, knees and the like were all fair targets in her opinion, and she knew how to leave lasting marks. Archie had deemed that enough; he'd said she shouldn't worry about fighting, but instead make anything ordinary into a weapon just long enough to get a way. She'd agreed. Even so, she picked up other ways to fight here and there, a little of everything, nothing really formal.

It was with a kind of sadness that she looked back now and realized how ill he'd prepared her in that department. He'd seen her size as an advantage, always had, and had crafted her to make the most of the things she already had. And she had- and still did, for that matter- and it had made her millions. Billions, even. And what little she knew of fighting and her talent for ingenuity probably would have been enough- if she'd been Archie's height and his weight.

She's survived well enough, of course, but that was before she'd worked as a part of the team; as a soloist, it was easy enough to plan for herself, to get in and get out and make sure that she didn't put herself in a position where she might be physically restrained. On a team, however, she was both constrained and free in different ways; though she remained primarily a thief, she was learning other roles too, as necessary. After all, during the past couple of years she'd learned a little bit of grifting and a little bit of hacking- courtesy of Sophie and Hardison- and had but those skills to good use. Despite being asked to take on other roles, she had remained reliant on Eliot for the hitting, hadn't even considered that if she could defend herself for even a second or two, _really_ defend herself, that it might buy Eliot the necessary time to accomplish whatever he needed, should things ever go south on a con. Being able to protect herself might mean the difference between life and death- for her _and_ for him. If something happened and she needed to lend a reliable hand, well- Nate had said they were family.

She'd protect her family, like they'd protected her.

As Eliot went to brush by her, she grabbed his arm, holding tight despite the effort he made to continue forward. Her face was earnest, open, eager. "Do you mean it?" she demanded, hand clenching around his forearm.

Eliot paused, anger momentarily derailed, frustration and anger dropping away and leaving only a strangely frail kind of uncertainty. "I wouldn't have said it otherwise."

Parker's face lit up, not unlike a child at Christmas, and Eliot mentally smacked himself for the comparison because Parker was a dangerous, if now mostly well meaning thanks to Nate and Sophie's influence, woman, not a kid who needed to have her cheeks pinched by an overbearing family member.

"Cool," she said then, with painful nonchalance that made Eliot's heart squeeze just a little, "I think that would be nice."

Eliot's eyes widened for just a moment before he nodded shortly, taking the time to avoid her gaze by shaking some of his hair out of his face. He felt oddly embarrassed by the expression on her face, a mix of emotions that hit a little too close to home. "Good. That sounds...good. Ah, I'm going to go, but, uh, we can set up some times that work later."

Looking equally awkward and stilted, she just nodded her head and released his arm like it was suddenly made of molten lava, and with her head down, she slipped through the door and was down the hall before he was able to pull himself together, glance darting nervously over her shoulder as though she expected an attack from him at any moment.

 _What_ , Eliot wondered suddenly to himself, standing perplexed in the room that he and Parker had appropriated for a gym, _have I gotten myself into_?

~*~

"He's a drug dealer!" Greg Phillips ground out harshly, eyes filling with unshed tears, voice thick and choked. "We're a poor part of town, we know that. And we know the area is dangerous- we're lucky if something is called in and the cops get there within fifteen minutes. Most times they don't even show. But when he's using our kids, our sons and daughters as drug runners on the corner station, harassing their families, threatening them...no one says it, but everyone knows that when the McKinley's kid got shot, three weeks ago, they called it a gang hit. Said they found a gang tattoo on his shoulder. And I want to ask them when did he get it, when he was mowing my lawn for a couple of bucks a couple days before that, and his shoulder didn't have no mark then? He was a good kid, too, straight As, played soccer, had a full scholarship to George Washington and next thing you know, he's lingering out after dark, won't talk to no one about what's going on."

His hands trembled as he picked up the glass of scotch and drained the last of it. "I just...I don't know where else to turn to. I probably don't even know the half of it. And I know, since we are in a bad part of town, you can't stop everything. All I'm asking is that you keep this guy from using our kids to keep us silent. No one's sure what kid he's going to pick out for his next victim; keeping them off the streets isn't good enough, not when he broke into my sister Laurie's house two days ago, and demanded that she either allow Ashley to take his drugs to some drop point on the outskirts of the city by herself, or watch her baby girl die."

Eliot watched both Nate and Parker's mouths tighten, and knew why. Hardison and Sophie might like kids, but theirs was a somewhat impersonal like. Hardison had grown up semi-normal, one of the lucky kids in the system who really knew stability, who was fortunate enough to get a real childhood. As for Sophie, well, her past was too shrouded in mystery for Eliot to know what the hell she was thinking more than one time in ten. He couldn't even begin to imagine what her childhood had been like. Nate though...Nate had watched his only boy die, yes, but he'd watched him grow up first. Parker had never really been a kid, not really, too scarred from the streets and then being a thief to imagine doing things like taking her crush to the prom. Eliot himself had seen his elder brother take one too many hits for him before his mom wised up when Eliot was about seven, almost too young to have even really remembered it, and gotten his father's sorry ass kicked out of the house. It was a lot harder after that, but a world safer.

Nate didn't even reflexively check his answer with either Parker or Eliot. He knew, he absolutely _knew_ what their responses would be. "We'll do it, Mr. Phillips," he said quietly, with that smooth easy confidence both Eliot and Parker were accustomed to hearing in this situation. "We'll get him off the streets, so your kids will have one less problem to deal with."

Phillips grabbed Nate's hand, eyes closing in relief as he muttered a quick prayer under his breath. Nate awkwardly tried to pull his hand away, a bit of a flush taking over his face, but Phillips held on strong, looking at all three of them earnestly as he said, "I can't thank you, I'll _never_ be able to thank you enough if you can get that bastard as far away from us as possible."

"It will take a while," Nate cautioned, more out of reflex than anything else, though in this case it was true. Something as large as bringing down a drug lord wouldn't be easy, or all that fast, though it was hardly the largest fish they'd fried. Eliot could already see Nate's brain hard at work though, running through all of the possible options of what they could do to draw him out into the open and nail his sick ass to the wall. There was a decided twist to his mouth that was bitter, sad, and furious all at the same time, and for the first time Eliot saw something of a filial similarity for all they weren't blood related; Parker's mouth was curled derisively in almost the same exact way.

"Mr. Ford," Phillips said in a voice of fire and fight, "if you manage to accomplish this at all, it will be worth the time it takes you to do it, I'm sure."

"Thank you for your time," Nate said, instead of directly addressing what the man had said, unwilling to raise his hopes. "We'll keep in touch. Parker. Eliot." He shook the Phillips's hand and led both his hitter and his thief upstairs to the apartment.

Hardison, with an almost preternatural knowledge, was already looking up the necessary information, hands speeding over the keyboard. "Gimme just a sec, and I'll have a whole presentation ready. His systems are absolute shit, man. Probably paid some two-bit programmer to make a secure system. I could do this while I'm _asleep_ , I mean, really, it's pathetically-"

"Hardison," Nate drawled with a lazy irritation, raising one brow. "How about if we cut to the chase?"

Hardison muttered some very unkind things under his breath about being underappreciated by Nate in general and by the team in particular. Eliot rolled his eyes and lightly smacked the back of Hardison's head on his way to his spot on the couch, not hard enough to even hurt, let alone leave a mark, but it got the expected shout of anger and overly dramatic protest.

Nate settled them all down, looking impatient, and called up Sophie, who had just left the airport. The new set of Christian Louboutin's were out, and she'd been absolutely set on getting them; and though there were a few places in New York that she could get them at, she was a woman not to be stopped or denied. To that end, she'd gone to London to both buy them and visit a few friends who would be in town while they were between jobs for the moment, citing the need to get out of Boston for a day or two.

Half an hour later, the moment Sophie walked in the door, Nate turned expectantly to Hardison. Sophie dropped her bag on the ground, one hand on her hip. "I don't even get a hello?" she demanded as she raised an eyebrow at him and pursed her lips. "That's not a very auspicious start."

"Nice shoes."

"Now that's some very chic footwear."

"Pretty."

"How are those even comfortable?"

The chorus was ragged and uninspired, but present nonetheless; Eliot didn't even look over his shoulder to call out his response, but it was Parker that took one look at the shoes and stared at Sophie's feet in absolute incomprehension.

"No, seriously, how are you wearing them?" Parker said with no small amount of horrified confusion, mouth dropping open. "I think they're the tallest heels you've ever worn, and it's not even a special occasion!"

"Thank you, Parker," Sophie said, as though she'd just been paid the highest compliment, ignoring the snickering from Hardison and Eliot as they exchanged looks. "And all it takes is a bit of practice. I could show you, you know." Parker made a face as Sophie came around the couch. Eliot was fast enough to get his foot out of the way when Sophie came to sit at her usual spot, but Hardison hadn't even been paying attention, and the stilettos came down fairly hard on his foot.

"What the hell? What is this, pick on Hardison day?" He grumbled under his breath, glancing cautiously at Sophie as he did so, but it seemed she'd enacted all the revenge she was planning for the moment, because the annoyance had faded from her face.

From there, they all took a moment to compose themselves, settling in comfortably for the presentation. It wasn't as though the jokes and teasing were going to stop, but it did mean that they would be paying close attention to every little thing that Hardison said, ready to absorb it and take advantage of it, possible maneuvers unfolding in their minds.

Hardison limped as he got up to the front of the group, staring at Sophie pointedly as he did so; Sophie returned him stare for stare, eyes challenging.

Hardison backed down first.

"Hardison," Nate said in a mildly encouraging voice, directing Hardison's attention elsewhere. "What have you got?"

Hardison gestured at the screen, bringing up an image of a tall, slim man with dark skin, hair and eyes, hat tipped down to cover most of his face, though his mouth was stretched in a full white smile that had not one iota of mercy in it. "This is our mark, Agni Lakshmi. He grew up in the slums of India until he was eleven and he and his family managed to get into the country on some of the _worst_ forged paperwork I've ever seen. No, really, like I have no idea how they got into the country beyond some sort of blind luck, spit, and prayers. Anyways, to make a long story short, they ended up in intercity Philadelphia, where between a dad that worked in Trenton as a dime-a-dozen factory worker and his mom who stayed at home, he somehow managed to get involved in drugs and gangs by the time he was fourteen. By sixteen, he'd dropped out of high school, was his gang's top hitter and had been accused of raping his next door neighbor and murdering seven opposing gang members and causing the wounds of twelve more. In every case, some key witness suddenly didn't want to offer a testimony, or piece of crucial info somehow managed to get stolen. You know the drill." Hardison brought up a series of mug shots and some of the case files.

"Gangs protect their own," Parker said in a quiet voice, looking distant. She blinked then, glancing at the way everyone was staring at her. "Hey, you don't have to look so surprised. Someone that good? They're not going to give him up. He was probably one of the leaders by that point, and they knew they'd be in for retribution if they didn't help him out." Everyone knew there was plenty being left unsaid by Parker though, and none of them was willing to touch that with a ten foot pole, not at the moment.

"Especially if he was, like the police suspected, their major arms dealer as well." Hardison continued, nodding at Parker's statement. "Lakshmi's gang was the one running the city the following year; he'd long since dropped out of high school at that point, and was on the streets full time. He'd also left his family's home as well; his parents tried to keep in touch with him, but eventually fell out of contact. All in all, the typical teenager gone wrong. A couple months later city police went out with the FBI and really cracked down. In fact, they got all but Agni Lakshmi and his third in command, a guy by the name of Harold Petrowsky." Hardison brought up a series of images of Petrowsky and Lakshmi, both alone and together. "Petrowsky's got a pretty similar story- grew up in Russia, where his parents had some mob dealings, and somehow managed to gain enough favor to get out of the country."

He gestured, and then brought up some more pictures that looked more recent than the decade or two that the earlier photographs had been. "Anyways, the two of them disappeared underground for a couple of years to keep the police off their back. I'm betting they went to Petrowsky's friends in the Russian mob here, because they worked for a while as the bodyguards of Ivanka Kozlov, daughter of Mikhail Kozlov." Nate and the others nodded; Kozlov was reasonably high up in the mob, but no one too attention getting, powerful enough to pay Petrowsky and Lakshmi what they were looking for without drawing the police back down on them.

"Where he really got into drug dealing." Eliot filled in what they were all thinking.

Hardison nodded. "Kozlov is their through man; he mostly orchestrates what's going to be dropped where and by whom, so on and so forth." Hardison made a face, telling the rest of the team exactly what he thought of that entire deal.

"And let me guess," Nate said, and there was no hint of question in his even baritone, "Lakshmi and Petrowsky started running their own drugs."

"They buy them from the Russian mob, as a matter of fact; it's a good deal for everyone involved. Petrowsky's got enough history with the Family that they trust him as much as they trust anyone, and him and Lakshmi are perfect vessels to get rid of the drugs without calling attention directly to themselves. Everyone wins."

"Except for the part where Lakshmi started to use kids from the poor parts of town as his grunt workers to move the drugs- they're the ones that are getting caught and killed when they don't do exactly what they're told, but everyone's afraid too say a word, not when they know that they or their family might be the next victim of a drive by shooting if they do it. Or worse- their kid might be the next one selected. And besides, Lakshmi and Petrowsky keep themselves well above it, leaving all the manual labor and the actual selection of the kids to their lackeys." There was a wry twist to Sophie's mouth, and that was all the confirmation Nate needed to wave Hardison down.

When Hardison was seated, Nate stood and began pacing back and forth. "So our goal is pretty simple- get Lakshmi and Petrowsky behind bars, and make sure that their Russian friends disavow anything to do with them- and if at all possible, get Lakshmi's entire operation in handcuffs and joining their employers for a long, long time."

"No kidding," Eliot interjected dryly, impatience written on every line of his body. "But how are we going to do that?"

Nate mused for a moment before saying decisively, "I'm thinking we ought to go steal ourselves a crime syndicate. I think that sounds like a really good idea." He tucked his hands in his pockets, mouth quirked, and then he wandered off, leaving them to draw their own conclusions.

"One day, I'm going to dangle him over the edge of the building until he explains himself," Eliot growled.

Parker's mercurial gaze slid to him, her mouth twitching. "I'll lend you my equipment."


	2. Chapter 2

" _Nate, are you absolutely_ sure _that this is a good idea?_ " Hardison's voice rang in everyone's ears, sounding understandably nervous. It had taken him a couple of hours before he'd been able to narrow down the list of possible locations to this warehouse. He hadn't needed to confirm it- the bodyguards standing around the warehouse, making regular rounds had given it away. Said goons were quiet, intent and attentive, too well trained and centered to be drawn off by some random noise, not for lack of trying on Eliot's part. In fact, he'd been told in no uncertain terms to beat a hasty retreat when five of the twelve men in the area had begun casing the area with professional detachment.

Eliot had argued that he could take them on, but the risk was too big; the other guards were in constant contact with those who'd left the warehouse, and though Eliot was fast, fighting wasn't exactly quiet. Also, Eliot wasn't superhuman- he might, by some miracle, be able to get those five guards within his striking range without getting shot, but he would most certainly be heard, and no one thought the next group of people sent after him would be stupid enough to get within his range before opening fire. Nate didn't dare run the risk that he'd be killed, and they were already suspicious, considering that they'd turned Sophie and her charms away with barely a glance.

Nate's sigh sounded like a gust of static. " _We need to go on, if at all possible. Sophie needs to know exactly what kind of drugs and what kind of purity we're talking about- and if possible, the exact extent of what else they're involved in- if she's going to convince Lakshmi that she's a part of the Indian mob, looking to reconnect with someone from the States to expand their business to rival the work of the Italians or the Russians, she's got to have something to work on- no one would be stupid enough to go up to a potential business associate, as it were, without having done some incredibly thorough research. So the question is, Parker, are you up to it? Eliot can get as close as he can, for back up, but you'd essentially be on your own._ "

" _And Parker, don't do it entirely on my account,_ " Sophie added, sounding disgruntled and a little stuffy. It seemed that Hardison's new truck didn't smell all that much better than his old one. " _We can try again another time. It might be best to withdraw while we can_."

"It's not like I haven't done this in worse situations," Parker retorted into her ear bud, lithe figure already darting across the rooftops, completely cutting off Nate and Sophie's attempts to make her understand the danger. They called it reason. She called it boring. They needed the information, so she would do it. She didn't understand all this fuss about what would happen to her. "Besides, I did a trial run on another warehouse in the area that has the same plan as the schematic _you_ got for us, Hardison. There's plenty more ways in than the front door, and I went through every one of them. Besides, this will make it much more interesting. Breaking into the warehouse is something that I was planning on doing blindfolded, because really, a monkey could have completed the original plan-" she ignored the immediate and extremely vocal displeasure being voiced. They just had no sense of excitement. "-but now I've got to make everything soundless, because it'll echo unbelievably otherwise, and they'll all come running in, which makes it considerably more interesting." The sound of her cracking knuckles was audible as she got ready. "And I know the perfect way in. This place has got an enormous free circulating ventilation system; whoever originally made these buildings didn't care to pay to make each building self-contained, probably because the stuff originally stored here wasn't temperature sensitive. Anyways, I can go in two or three buildings down, and do a straight crawl through, as long as Hardison directs me."

" _Well, Hardison?_ " asked Nate, sounding torn between allowing Parker to enact her crazy scheme and bailing until they could get together a better plan.

" _Give me a minute,_ " Hardison sounded frustrated. " _Governments don't let just anyone hack into their system, and Lord of the Internet I may be, I distinctly lack to ability to magically remove pesky little things like firewalls and passwords with my mental powers. And this'll be faster than figuring out who originally made the buildings and trying to figure out their system. You know, you're just lucky I have a backdoor-_ "

" _Lord of the Internet?_ " Eliot interrupted suddenly.

" _Yes, Lord of the Internet, and don't you dare say anything. I'd pay to see you attempt to hack something. It would make me laugh for weeks_."

" _Boys_ ," Sophie says, and Parker can practically taste her exasperation Sophie was exuding on her tongue. " _Play nice_."

" _I am playing nice_ ," said two voices, in stereo.

Parker snorted before dissolving into laughter. Eliot and Hardison were more alike than they knew, and constantly denied it. However, the time for laughter was swiftly over, and she sobered, beginning to feel too open and exposed on the rooftop on which she stood. It seemed Nate was of the same mind, because he prompted, " _Hardison?_ "

" _At your service. Alright, Parker, first you want to get into the opening on your right, the one meant for exhaust. The systems aren't on now, so it's perfectly safe. You'll have a drop of about four feet or so, and it's onto a metal platform, so be careful_." Parker rolled her eyes as his molly-coddling, and obeyed his commands, dropping down onto the surface, the only sound of her impact a quiet _clunk_ that was no louder than the general sounds of a building settling.

From there, it was just a matter of playing follow the leader. Or rather, follow-Hardison's-voice, which amounted to the same thing. She turned again and again, mind automatically filing away every vent she went down should she need to the same thing in reverse; while her mind catalogued her location, she focused on making as little sound as possible, creeping along, making sure that her movements were smooth and sinuous, that there was not a single sound that would be heard.

It was harder than she thought it would be, if she was being perfectly honest with herself. The ventilation system was ancient, and it constantly creaked; there were random dips and bumps where the metal had been bent out of shape by some force or another, making her going even slower, forcing her to pay more and more attention to keep from slipping down a shaft or hitting the edge of a vent and making it rattle and clang. It wasn't long before she had a litany of insults pouring from her mouth in a random pattern, cursing everything from the idiot that had designed the system to the failure to upkeep it so any reasonable, normal thief would be able to safely break inside. She muttered oaths about how old everything was, and about how much easier it was to break into places where they actually kept everything up to date, because no one wanted the vents to be rattling every two minutes. After a certain point, Eliot and the others just gave up on reminding Parker that they could hear every word that came out of her mouth, no matter how quietly it was hissed. Her voice was low enough that it was only heard over the ear buds as an intermittent irritated voice, barely carrying even in the air vent, and Nate knew how to pick and choose his battles.

" _Alright_ ," Hardison reported with no small measure of relief. " _We're on the home stretch, Parker. A couple more turns and you should come to an opening below you that you can use to get down- you'll be pretty high up. Do you have your rappelling stuff with- what am I saying? Of course you do_."

"Duh," Parker said carelessly, continuing to follow Hardison's directions.

" _Wait, just a minute_." That was Nate's voice, and as usual, they all paused in their actions to hear what he had to say. " _Eliot, you're in position and ready?_ "

" _As I'll ever be_."

" _Okay, then. Parker, Hardison, go ahead. Be careful, Parker_."

Parker rolled her eyes, though she knew they couldn't see it. "Aren't I always?"

There was a chorus of, " _No_ "s that had her rolling her eyes for a second time, before she continued to work, studiously ignoring them all.

Hardison cleared his throat awkwardly, but none of them were about to allow a spat to get in the middle of their work. " _Another twenty feet in front of you, alright? It's mostly uphill_ -"

And the bottom dropped out of Parker's world.

There was a part of her, the dark cynic in her that raged and screamed sometimes when she was bored or upset or terrified, that laughed at this, that laughed at this terrible come-uppance that she was always waiting for, the day when that other shoe dropped, when the worst came to pass, when she stopped being painfully lucky.

Waiting for the damn wax to melt.

She fell.

There was a terrible shriek of metal giving out, and her tiny, insignificant gasp couldn't have possibly been heard inside the cacophony, wouldn't have been heard even if there had been complete and utter silence, but it felt so loud to her, as though someone had shouted their surprise in her ear.

She flew for a living. She jumped off ledges, flung herself over cliffs, dove off buildings without care, without remorse, but this was not flying, this was something she had no name for, and the ground racing to meet her was suddenly a thing of absolute terror, because she hadn't been expecting it, hadn't been prepared, she didn't have any of her equipment ready, and she'd never have the opportunity to do so now.

She wasted too much time shocked before her highly trained reflexes kicked themselves into gear, trying to orient herself in space before she landed, but everything was a blur of panic around her because she'd _never_ fallen before, not when it mattered. This wasn't a training exercise, this wasn't practice, this wasn't _expected_ , because she'd always flown before, catching herself before the ground had caught up with her, and the fear rose like bile in her throat, thick and hot and fast. There was a part of her shrieking the stupidest things, like, _but Sophie was supposed to take me clothes shopping when this job was done! She promised!_ and to match it, there was a quiet voice in the back of her mind that said, with curious detachment, _I didn't think it was true, but it seems that the strangest stuff does in fact go through your head when you're about to meet your death, adrenaline notwithstanding-_

She hit the ground, breath exploding out of her in a pained, instinctual whine.

There was a heavy beat of silence filled with dread.

In that moment she found with unadulterated wonder that she was breathing, that she had somehow managed to right herself enough that she hadn't fallen on her head.

Somehow, by some grace, she was alive.

She was at a loss for words.

That silence, the sheer, unbelievable wonder only last that heart beat, however. She didn't even have the time to inhale before Nate was roaring, " _GO, GO, GO,_ " and the words skittered across her brain as she blinked woozily, too stunned to move. " _ELIOT, GET IN THERE NOW. SOPHIE, START THE VAN!_ " Already there were sounds of gunshots clanging against metal and the shouts of those that had been injured, and there was a screech of tires and a distinct thud- it seemed that Hardison- or more likely Sophie, who was probably driving, had accidentally-on-purpose hit some of the men as they skidded to a stop, though probably not enough to kill them because these were men who had probably been hit with cars more than once during their career, and yes, it seemed that her mind was still on some sort of automatic system where it reported everything to her and _oh god, why couldn't it just_ stop.

She heaved another breath, shock fading. She gathered what few wits she had about her, her thieving instincts absolutely clamoring for her to move and move _now_ because she wasn't safe, not here, and she had to get to a place that was safe. Immediately she took stock of herself.

She looked at her own body with a practiced indifference that she wasn't sure she could have managed if she wasn't in so much danger still. There was the possibility at any minute that one of the security guards would come thundering in here, and there was no place to run, no place to hide, and they needed just one bullet and the family of her own choosing would be grieving- _or at least, she hoped they would be grieving because she'd grieve for them like they'd torn her heart out, and if they died, they might as well have_ \- because that would be endgame.

She wondered if having her brains blown out would hurt, even for an instant, before it all went black.

Pulling herself away from that thought took a physical effort that she could ill afford at the moment, and the room around her went fuzzy- fuzzier, really- at the edges. She was lying on her side, where she'd fallen, the metal that had been part of the vent now in pieces all around her. She ignored it. It didn't matter. From the raw ache in her arm, she must have landed there, which made sense when she attempted to pull her arm out from under her and it didn't respond; it looked strange, though, and she suspected it was broken in at least two places, because she was reasonably sure that her arm wasn't supposed to look like that. Each breath sent fire lancing through her torso, which meant bruised ribs, at the very least, possibly worse, and then her ankle and knee, which was already swelling and that meant it was probably injured too. She squinted as she looked over her body, swallowing constantly to keep the nausea down, and that made her anxious, in a far away way. She'd torn ligaments, cut herself badly enough to need stitches that left scars, cracked bones- she knew what it was like, to be really and truly hurt.

She knew that if it was bad, if it was really and truly bad, then it wouldn't hurt at first, as her body went into shock and released a constant stream of endorphins until she was safe- _and she'd read that in a textbook somewhere, somewhere along the line and just because she hadn't gone to high school or college didn't mean she didn't know things, didn't know important things, but sometimes the others treated her like she didn't know anything at all, and it burned_ \- and she jerked back to herself to find she was giggling softly, and the sound echoed around the enormous warehouse in a way that made her abruptly silent.

" _Parker, Parker, are you there, can you hear me_?" She blinked. She hadn't heard anyone's voice, hadn't heard any of them trying to get her to say something, say anything. Eliot's voice cut through the others', however, because it was calm and warm, just like what she'd imagined the wind of his southern home might feel against her skin on a nice day. Eliot knew fighting, knew injuries, and it showed itself effortlessly in his voice, in the gentle compassion there. " _Parker, if you're there, you need to talk to me. I need to know exactly where you are, if you can tell me. We're finished out here, we just need to load you up and get going, Parker, because with that many shots being fired, the police are right on our tails. Can you talk to me, please?_ "

It was the 'please' that did it. Eliot was caustic, sometimes, and angry most of the time, but the please stayed with her because it was so _gentle_ and _sweet_ and _impossibly soothing_ and she inhaled and exhaled sharply. She would do anything for the kindness in that voice, the deep interior that showed itself on so few occasions.

"I fell," she rasped out, and a series of elated sounds poured out through her ear bud, gasps and shouts and cries as the talking increased.

" _Shut up, all of you_ ," Eliot growled then, overriding all the other voices that seemed to be trying to tear apart Parker's skull. She groaned, a pitiful little sound, and she _knew_ it was pitiful and hated the fact that it was just the sound of something injured and dying, because it meant that she couldn't run, couldn't escape. She was trapped here.

 _Trapped_.

Her breaths started to come faster because she _couldn't move_ because she'd _fallen_.

She'd _fallen_.

" _Parker, you've got to stay with me. You're hyperventilating, so I need you to take deep breaths. Can you do it with me_?" Eliot's voice washed over her, and she focused on it.

She nodded, instantly coming to the conclusion that nodding her head was not one of her wisest moves because it sent waves of pain down her entire body, and it was a long moment before she realized that Eliot couldn't have possibly seen it in the first place, and that was probably the reason why he was still trying to coax her into breathing properly. "Okay," she croaked, staring straight ahead of her, unseeing.

There was a rush of air. "Okay. I want you to take in the biggest breath that you can for me, and hold it for just a second."

"But- but I need to tell you-" the pain was making it all slip away, making it all go sideways, and it would have been interesting if she was in the air, flying in the way only she could, because when the world went sideways it was so much more interesting than when it was right side up. She understood the world when it was sideways because things made sense like that, but this wasn't like that, and she felt so sick, like the time when she'd been little, and her mom had given her, her bunny back when she'd had the flu, keeping it out of sight of her father.

" _You don't need to tell me anything, Parker. Focus on breathing. I'll be there with you in just a second, I promise. Can you keep breathing with me? Remember, a nice big breath_." Parker inhaled shakily, though it made the feeling of illness increase and her chest hurt. " _Good. Now can you exhale for me?_ " An equally shaky breath escaped her. " _And again, Parker, in_ -"

Eliot's voice was starting to sound funny, she realized. It was like there were two of them, and she giggled a bit drunkenly as the view in front of her side-slipped dangerously again. She obeyed him, however, inhaling and ignoring the pain in her side, and exhaling again, because Eliot sounded happy when she did it, and she liked it when he sounded happy. He wasn't happy often. Her thoughts wandered off, and she lost track of what Eliot was saying for a second or two.

The double voices were explained when the hitter in question stepped around a couple of broken crates that she'd probably skimmed as she'd fallen. Hardison's gear was good, very good, but there was still the tiniest pause between when Eliot actually said something and when it reached her. That explained why there'd been two Eliots. Parker frowned as she started up at Eliot, mouth twisting up with confusion. There were two Eliots standing over her.

That didn't make sense.

Did it?

"I got her, I got her, I'll bring her out in a minute. You ready to floor it?" Eliot was saying as he examined her with a cursory eye. Parker blinked owlishly. She could only feel one set of hands on her body- where were the second Eliot's hands? "She's as safe to move as she'll ever be, since I don't see any major bleeding injuries. We can't wait for a paramedic to examine her. I'm bringing her out now."

Eliot tipped her head back with one finger, staring into Parker's dazed blue eyes, and let out a series of curses that blistered the air. It took Parker too long to focus on him, and her breathing was labored, amongst other things. He cursed again, heart squeezing uncomfortably at the sight of Parker so frail, so tiny, so broken.

Eliot cupped her cheek, drawing what little attention Parker had left. "I've got you," he murmured. She was less likely to fight him in an unexpected moment if he gave her full warning. "I'm going to pick you up and get you out of here, alright? It's okay-" he smiled crookedly, somehow managing to be reassuring though Parker knew this wasn't good. "You can pass out if you'd like to."

That sounded like the best idea Eliot had ever had.


	3. Chapter 3

Parker woke up all at once. She always did- she'd trained herself to do it, mostly because Interpol and the FBI and M15 don't politely knock on your door and wait for you to be awake before they bust your door down.

She kept her eyes closed, however, because if she was in an enemy's grip, she had no interest in alerting them to the fact that she was awake before she had some idea of the situation. Her breathing remained steady too- in fact, it was doubtful that anyone would be able to tell from a glance that anything had changed at all.

She took a slightly deeper breath, keeping her mouth slack as she did so, smelling antiseptic and feeling the ache in her bones which practically screamed hospital. Hospitals weren't safe, per say, but they weren't necessarily dangerous things either. Hospitals were a sight easier to get out of than anything else in her job, that was for certain. She twitched her wrists slightly, but there was no feeling of anything against the skin, so she was neither handcuffed not restrained to the bed, which was good in case she needed to move quickly to get out of there despite her injuries.

As for her injuries- she ached everywhere, frankly, the bone-deep ache that could leave a person exhausted for days on end, but worst of all was her left arm and side, an ache which increased as she slowly inhaled and exhaled. Where had she gotten-

Ah. The memories slid into focus, the last real vestiges of her enforced sleep fading from her mind, giving rise to clarity, though the medication- and she had to be on medication, if she was still in this much pain and her mouth felt this dry- still made the edges of her mind go fuzzy and quiescent.

For once, she didn't mind it, because she knew that there was nothing to worry over. Nate and the others had brought her here, she was sure.

Her eyes slid open slowly, and she blinked blearily as she took in her surroundings. She was in a normal hospital room, walls tinted a slight beige, lying in a hospital bed wearing those flimsy, scratchy scrubs or whatever they were called that always left her itching for days afterwards. It was a small, single room, which surprised her a little, and touched her even more- that her team would spend the money on her, would shell out the cash for a single room. Even more surprising was Nate, wan and pale in the halogen lights that flickered occasionally, sprawled in a chair near her bed and clearly asleep, snoring gently. If Nate was here, she was safe. She smiled softly, letting her eyes slip closed for a little while as she drifted in that strange area between waking and sleeping for an indeterminate amount of time.

When she woke up the second time, she felt more clear-headed, though there was still that mildly fuzzy feeling in the back of her mind that practically shouted painkillers, but she ignored it, pulling herself together. She wiped at her eyes, the vestiges of sleep falling away as she took in the room for a second time. Now it was Eliot that was asleep in the uncomfortable plastic chair that was the room's only real furniture. She cast about her, already feeling much more awake despite the continued pain, and as she did so, she felt the tug of an IV in her arm. Though she barely spared a glance for the heart monitor and other things that were hooked up to her body, she stared in abject horror at the cast on the arm and the sling that was keeping it close to her body. Using her free hand, she patted herself down and found light binding all along her ribcage and an ace bandage around her left knee. Pulling off the sheet, she found that almost her entire left side was covered in mottled bruising. She poked a bruise, grimacing when pain radiated out from the spot. She frowned, irritated, knowing that this would mean more time off than they could afford at the moment. Nate wouldn't let her do anything until she was absolutely fine, as she'd learned from previous cons; he was a not-so-closet mother hen. She'd never been injured this severely before, however, not since she started thieving, but even if she'd only gotten off with a sprained ankle, Nate- and Eliot, for that matter, as the de facto medical personnel around- would have been just as careful.

The thought made something warm and soft glow in her chest.

Once she was done investigating her injuries and the room, she grew bored quickly and decided to wake Eliot up, curious as to what was going on, especially because the last thing she really remembered was the vent giving out from under her. She had no recollection of what had occurred between then and now. Whenever now was, that is.

There was nothing to throw, however- not for lack of checking- so she had to settle for hissing, "Psst! Eliot, wake up!" and hoping that the sound didn't bring any nurses or doctors into the room before they could get their story straight. She was already itching to go, itching to get out of this confining room, itching to be out in the world again. "Eliot!" she said a little louder.

Eliot awoke smoothly, as though he'd just closed his eyes for a moment, as though he'd never really been asleep at all. Parker squinted at him. It was a little unnerving, to be honest. He glanced at her, eyes completely unclouded by sleep or drugs or anything at all- which was supremely unfair- and nodded his head in greeting, mouth curling upwards a little.

"What time is it?" Parker asked promptly. She grimaced a little; the fact that she was now fully awake had made her realize exactly how long since she'd brushed her teeth, and her hair and skin felt grimy from the floor of the warehouse. She needed a shower desperately. "And when can I get out of here?"

Eliot's mouth softened, and his eyes crinkled in a strange sort of good humor that Parker ignored because she didn't understand it. "First things first," he said, holding a finger up in waiting. He got her a cup of water, and then helped her sit her bed up a little before giving said cup to Parker. She sipped it surprisingly demurely, letting it ease her parched throat and help clear away some of the taste in her mouth. When she was done, she looked at Eliot expectantly, letting her expression say everything for her.

"Well, it's currently," Eliot checked his cell phone casually before shoving it roughly back in his pocket, "5:43 in the morning." Eliot settled back in his chair, eyes meeting Parker's squarely. She was grateful that Eliot would be the one that was telling her all this- Hardison didn't like blood and didn't do well with hospitals and always forgot to give some vital piece of information as a result, Sophie always wanted to soften the news, wanted to give Parker sympathy and smother her in kindness, and Nate was always skirting facts, like he didn't want her to know exactly how bad it was despite the fact that the ache or cut or whatever was informing her exactly how bad it was without any input from him. Eliot always told her exactly what was going on with her injuries, no more, no less, and he never sounded condescending as he spoke. He treated her like an intelligent adult. It was...nice. Unusual, but nice.

Eliot cleared his throat. "We brought you in yesterday afternoon, around four, give or take. You'd long since passed out. They made sure your head was okay first, no intracranial bleeding that they could find or any swelling, and you didn't show any signs of being concussed, somehow, though I'm not entirely sure how you did it, and when they woke you up, you knew the basics- or rather, it seems that Hardison and Sophie's training paid off, and you knew the basics of Alice's life- so they ended up keeping you sedated while they ran some x-rays and so on to see how bad it was. It was a comminuted fracture." At her blank look, Eliot explained, "It means your bone- your humorous, actually- broke into several pieces. Three, to be exact. You're lucky it wasn't an impacted or compound fracture, because those are really nasty. Your upper arm and shoulder took the worst of it- there's been some tearing around the shoulder joint that they want to keep an eye on, which is one of the reasons for the splint. You're not going to be able to really move that arm for a while. You've got three cracked ribs- they're only hairline fractures, though, so though shouldn't be as big of an issue as it would have been if you'd broken them all the way through, and as long as you don't breathe too deeply, you should be alright. You've got massive bone bruising on that side, but they didn't detect any internal bleeding, though we're supposed to keep an eye on you, in case they missed a slow bleed or something. Your knee is all twisted up, so you'll be off your feet as well until it's stronger, and you're going to be generally sore. They also want you to make sure that you're careful about your back- nothing's broken, but there's some strain especially on your lower back and your left hip that they want you to rest for as long as possible. They kept you overnight for observation, to make sure that you didn't develop a fever or anything like that, so as long as you haven't picked up some mysterious disease, they'll probably just give you the requisite painkillers and instructions, and then send you off. Overall...well, you'll live, but you'll be out of the game for a while." Eliot's eyes and expression were carefully blank as he delivered that last piece of news.

Parker had listened to Eliot's every word, face very still, eyes gone dark. Her mouth tightened as Eliot stressed that she'd be out of the game for a while, but Eliot had thought that it would be better to err on the side of caution; there was no need to allow Parker the time to get it into her head that somehow she'd be back up to helping them run cons in a week or two. Broken bones took time to heal- she'd be out for six weeks at the minimum, and the quicker she understood that, the less likely it was that Eliot would find her hanging upside down, arm too injured to pull herself up. Parker didn't seem to have any idea of her own limits- or rather, of her body's limits. Eliot wasn't exactly a good role model; he knew that there had been times when he should have rested, should have asked for help with an injury, shouldn't have stressed himself unduly. Eliot also knew the good kind of pain from the bad, however, knew that sometimes the body had to rest before continuing. And he'd always feel guilty after he'd kept a semi-vital piece of information about his injuries hidden, knowing that he was in the wrong.

And that probably made him a hypocrite, but at the moment, he couldn't find it in him to care.

Parker...Parker preferred to push through it all. There was no sense of 'here and no further', mostly because she'd never done herself such an injury before. She'd never _had_ to set limits for herself. There had never been a time when she hadn't been able to go do whatever she wanted and then some because of a physical deficiency. Eliot, of course, and the rest of the team sometimes had their doubts about mental deficiencies, but this was completely new territory for her.

Eliot was surprisingly concerned, heart beating a little faster, and instantly vowed that he would keep an eye on her, to keep her from hurting herself, to help her heal. It was the least he could do, really, and it just made sense. He couldn't trust anyone else to take proper care of her, to make sure she ate well and stretched properly and rested.

Eliot could do it, though.

He _would_ do it.

Parker's full mouth stretched suddenly, delight suffusing her expression, though Eliot's sharp eyes didn't miss the way she winced a little and tightened her hold on the empty cup when she tried to sit up a little more. "And what lie did Nate tell?" she asked. "I can't imagine he would have told the nurses and doctors that I was here after falling through a vent and landing in the middle of a warehouse potentially filled with drugs and guarded by men who would shoot you as soon as look as you."

"Hardly," Eliot drawled, and his normally barely-there accent thickened. Usually it was little more than a hint lacing his words grew in a way that made Parker want to find every way possible to draw it out, but it seems sleep had had some effect after all. She shook her head at herself a little, and then frowned when it made her head ache. It seems that though she hadn't had any major head injuries, the fall hadn't done her skull any favors either. "Parker?" Eliot asked, sitting up a little straighter and peering at her.

Parker scowled. She had to put a stop to this now. She flatly refused to be fussed over for the next two months. If she was, she was going to commit homicide, which she'd been informed by Archie at a young age fell on the general "Not Fine" list for normal people. "I'm fine," she groused.

Eliot snorted in disbelief, but the thief being in pain after a fall like that wasn't exactly a surprise. Besides, as soon as he and Parker got their stories straight, he was going to go let a nurse know that she was awake so she could be checked over anyways, so it didn't really matter what she did and did not say about her injuries. "If you say so," Eliot couldn't help prodding her, and Parker's scowl deepened. "Anyways, Nate told them that you'd fallen out of a tree. Since you were staying with him- he's your uncle, by the way, and Sophie's his wife- he rushed you to the hospital right away, of course. He claimed to be elsewhere when you fell out of the tree, and Sophie pretended she didn't know any more than he did, but they'd said heard you yelling before you passed out. Oh, and I'm your brother."

"Hardison?" Parker asked curiously, mostly because Eliot hadn't mentioned their hacker.

"He's your boyfriend," Eliot growled. Then he paused, a smug smile crossing his features. "That being said, he's not immediate family and he wasn't listed as your medical proxy on your file- Nate is- so he technically wasn't allowed to see you." There was a pause. "Though, technically, I'm not supposed to be here now, and Nate wasn't supposed to be here earlier. That doesn't matter though- Sophie talks a good game, of course, and managed to somehow convince them all that it was of vital importance that once of us be here with you at all times. Though..." Eliot looked up at the ceiling suddenly, a little sheepish, "though she made have made some insinuations about mental issues in the process, just so you know."

Parker shrugged, and then grimaced at the pain. However, she wasn't unduly disturbed by what Sophie had probably said. After all, it was more than likely she'd been called far, far worse at some point or another. She knew that other people didn't think she was quite...right. And anyways, Sophie didn't believe it. At least, Parker didn't think she believed the worst of it, not really. Sophie was too kind. She'd never talked about Parker behind her back with the intention of being hurtful, which was nice. Surprisingly nice. None of them did it, actually, even Eliot and Hardison. They called her crazy or insane or a wild child or unbelievable, but they'd never mocked her with the intention of making her hurt. They'd never physically attacked her, never tricked her or terrified her.

It was just...nice.

Eliot studied Parker as she went off into lala land, eyes distant and completely focused on her thoughts. He had to shrug a little at that internally, but snapped his fingers to regain her attention. Parker looked mildly surprised when she realized he was still there, and her face shouldn't have been as charming as it was, the open expression of surprise bringing a curious warmth to her features. "I'm off to let them know you're awake, alright?" Eliot said. "I'll be back in a few minutes, and then we sign some paperwork and nod and smile at the nurses and doctors, and we'll be out of here."

"Good," Parker said. "Hospitals are terrible." She sounded long suffering, which made Eliot catch himself smiling. He wasn't a fan of hospitals either.

Eliot rolled his eyes, just a little, to hide his good humor. "Well, it was that or die, and Nate thought you'd be rather opposed to the latter."

Parker gave another quick shrug, and Eliot could already tell it would be an outright war to keep her from pressing herself too hard, if she couldn't even remember that shrugging would hurt. He rolled his eyes again, this time with more genuine irritation. _I might just have to tie her to the bed to make sure she gets some rest_ , he thought, already dreading it.

Eliot sighed, and then rose from the uncomfortable chair that he'd been sitting in for the last few hours; his body, though accustomed to far longer waits in even more uncomfortable conditions, protested nonetheless. Parker's astute blue eyes watched him, and a prickle of embarrassment worked its way through his system, though he hadn't been doing anything to cause it. It was just the effect Parker seemed to have on people, eyes simultaneously too acute and too blind.

He waved a bit on his way out, a quick little motion that Parker just barely acknowledged, tracking down the nearest nurse and explaining that his 'sister Alice' had just woken up. He'd become surprisingly adept at acting, though he was hardly Sophie- and though it irritated him to admit it, Hardison- when it came to convincing people to believe him. His natural concern seemed to be enough for the nurse, who was more than happy to follow him back to the single room that Nate had procured for Parker.

Parker had been released within in an hour, with strict instructions to rest for the first few weeks and to call if there were any issues at all, like a fever or continuous headaches. Parker nodded and smiled, though Eliot had to resist the urge to smack Parker's arm to remind her that she was Alice. She'd gotten better, much better, at acting the part of Alice White, ordinary librarian, and she'd managed to hold her wits together when they'd first arrived at the emergency room- though she didn't even remember doing it- but it was like sometimes she lost track of the conversation, like the woman they were talking about wasn't her and therefore she had no reason to care, and her eyes would glaze over with boredom. They got out of the hospital in one piece though, thank goodness, and as they wrapped things up, Eliot called Nate to let him know what was happening.

Within ten minutes, Nate, Sophie and Hardison were all sitting in an idling car outside the main entrance, waiting for Parker and Eliot to come out. It took longer than Eliot was expecting, because Parker simply refused to use the wheelchair, blatantly ignoring the fact that with one arm, she wasn't capable of using crutches no matter how much she would have liked it. It wasn't until Eliot threatened to carry her down himself that she finally conceded, and even then it was with very poor grace indeed. However, it got her out of the hospital, which was enough to cool the worst of her ire.

From there, it was a series of discussions- well, arguments, really, since everyone seemed to have their own opinions as to how Parker should be cared for, but it was finally decided that she would have to stay with one of them for at least the first couple of weeks. Nate and Eliot were the two obvious choices, since Hardison couldn't stand the sight of blood and Sophie had practically no medical expertise. After a debate that lasted all through the car ride to the airport, the plane ride back to Boston, and through their departure from Logan airport, it was finally, grudgingly agreed that Parker would stay with Eliot, since he was the most qualified; and they would need those qualifications, considering how badly Parker was injured, the first of the group to be well and truly hurt. Eliot didn't consider himself, of course, since being hurt was his job.

When Nate finally conceded, Eliot knew enough to extend an olive branch, knowing how much Nate viewed Parker as a daughter, and asked him- all of them, really- to help by doing things like picking up meds and helping out with food shopping so he would have enough for at least two people in the house. There was the tacit understanding that Nate, Sophie and Hardison would be popping in and out over the next few weeks, which Eliot agreed to with as much good grace as he could muster. He didn't like it when people invited themselves into his home. Parker didn't count- he'd invited her there, first off, and she was injured, so she wasn't really a guest so much as a patient- but he knew that he wouldn't be able to stop the others from coming in and checking up on her.

He couldn't begrudge them that, though. It was surprisingly reassuring to hear that they were in no way planning on abandoning Parker any more than they'd abandoned each other when Eliot, or Nate, or Sophie or Hardison were injured on a job.

Even so, by the time they were finally back in Boston, and settled, and they'd gotten Parker's meds and fed her and taken her back to Eliot's apartment and had situated her in the spare bedroom, and then everyone had traipsed around his apartment, being generally irritating and intensely curious which all in turn made Eliot tempted to throw them out the window on the grounds that it probably wouldn't hurt them that much since he only lived on the second floor, Eliot was exhausted. He finally kicked everyone out of his apartment, growling expressively and ignoring all the complaints- Sophie and Hardison in particular were shameless busybodies- and checked in one last time on Parker, who was already out like a light.

With a sigh, Eliot went to bed as well.

~*~

After the chaos of the past day or so, Eliot was more than glad when he woke up at six in the morning- the time he usually started the day- the entire apartment was completely silent. He savored the quiet for a few long moments, positively basking in the fact that he finally had a moment to himself. Well, not entirely to himself, since he was all too aware of the fact that Parker was laying, presumably asleep, in the other room.

There was a crash from the kitchen.

Make that not asleep, then.

Eliot didn't even bother throwing on a shirt before leaving his room; the weather was warm enough that he wouldn't freeze, and if Parker was injured, he didn't have the time to waste. When he got to his kitchen, however, Parker was just sitting on the counter, looking guilty as she sat frozen, having clearly been rooting through his cupboards; Eliot could only assume that she was looking for something to eat.

Several things went through his mind at once. Firstly, why hadn't Parker simply called him to ask him for something to eat? He'd stressed to her yesterday- though she'd been mostly asleep at the time, clearly worn out- that if she needed anything, he was a call, text, or shout away. She'd grumbled at him and told him that she could take care of herself, and Eliot had played it off by simply saying he'd do no different for anyone on the team. And it was true- admittedly, he was generally the one hurt and receiving aid, but he'd helped out the others more than once when things had gotten dangerous. It only made sense, to keep each other in top form so they could continue doing their work safely. Secondly, how was it that Parker had gotten out of bed and into the kitchen- onto the counter, no less, as injured as she was and without making enough noise to wake him up? Eliot was a light sleeper by habit and training, so he had no idea how she'd managed it, as even the creaking of the floorboards should have alerted him. Thirdly, once in the kitchen, what the hell had she been looking for that had caused- he glanced at the ground and found a tin can full of dried fruit all over the ground, as well a glass of water, which had shattered upon impact- her to knock over both her glass and the food? She normally wasn't that clumsy, though Eliot would have bet a hundred bucks that she'd forgotten she was injured and overcompensated when she realized she was in danger of falling off the counter, or some such.

Eliot put his hand to his forehead. It was going to be a _long_ day.

"Um...sorry?" Parker said sheepishly, not stirring from her position on the counter. She looked rumpled still, hair in mild disarray and still wearing the pajamas Sophie had helped her into last night, a slight crease from the pillow on one cheek. She looked like she belonged there in his kitchen, somehow.

"What were you looking for?" Eliot asked tiredly, ignoring those thoughts of how at home Parker looked. He'd lecture her in a minute, when he'd cleaned up the floor and set his domain back into order.

At the reminder of the purpose of her quest, Parker looked put out. "You don't have anything decent to eat," she accused, looking irritated.

Eliot's eyebrows furrowed. "What on Earth are you talking about?" he asked. Apparently, though it was early enough to start his day, it was _not_ early enough to deal with the insanity that was Parker. "I have plenty of food. I just went grocery shopping the other day!" he exclaimed. This was not exactly an auspicious start, if Parker's expression was anything to go by. He tried to recall the previous times Parker had stayed with him after receiving an injury and couldn't recall any similar scenarios, and abruptly wondered if those times too she had gone rooting around in his shelves to find something to eat at strange hours, but he'd never noticed because she was so light on her feet. The thought disturbed him, but only in a vague sort of sense. It wasn't exactly a surprise, to be honest. It was just Parker being...Parker. Then, however, the injuries had been so much less severe- almost without his permission, his gaze flitted over the bruises that he could just barely see beyond the sling and cast, including a magnificent deep purple bruise on one cheekbone; bruises could just barely be seen littering that thin stretch of skin between the t-shirt and pajama bottoms Sophie had picked up for her from Parker's place. It was smooth, pale skin where it wasn't mottled with discoloration from the bruises.

Eliot swallowed loudly.

Parker didn't seem to notice that he was ogling, however, which Eliot was eternally grateful for. He tried to remind himself that it had been a while, a long, _long_ while since he'd been with anyone, and that well designed cutlery would probably do it for him at the moment. There was no shame in admiring the curve of her chest, or the way her hair curled around her ears, so long as it didn't progress beyond that.

"You have...healthy food," Parker said with revulsion, making a face. Her nose wrinkled, as though the very thought was enough to leave a bad taste in her mouth. "Where are the cookies? The chips? I'd even settle for chocolate in trail mix at this point. I'm _starving_." She rubbed her stomach as though she was wasting away before Eliot's eyes for effect. When Eliot seemed unmoved, she added plaintively, "Isn't there anything that isn't super healthy for you that I could eat?"

"I am not going to feed you junk food while you're trying to recover from serious injuries!" Eliot protested, words nearly a growl. "There's no way in hell. Don't even think about it. Besides, even if I was considering it, it's six in the morning! You can't possibly think that indulging in sugar that early in the morning is a good idea."

Parker blew out an exasperated breath. "God, you suck all the fun out of life. Haven't you ever eaten a pint of Ben and Jerry's all by yourself at three in the morning just because you wanted to do it?"

Eliot was mildly repulsed by the mere idea, and with all of his distaste leaking into his tone, he said, "Not exactly."

Parker's eyes narrowed. "What's wrong with you? Isn't that the point?"

Eliot began to feel out of his depth, because Parker must be absolutely _nuts_ , and in a rather bewildered and angry tone, he asked, "The point of _what_?" Parker refused to speak, however, literally turning her face to the side and sniffing for effect, though Eliot's sharp eyes noticed that she was still holding herself very carefully.

Eliot had not signed up to babysit a four year old. "I'm going to clean up this mess. You are going to sit there on the counter until I clean this all away, because the last thing I need this morning is to spend my time picking glass shards out of your feet because you didn't see them. And while you sit there, you are going to be quiet and consider what you want me to make for breakfast, since there's no chance in hell of me getting anything done until I feed you, it seems."

"But-" Parker protested, head snapping back towards Eliot. The motion sent her listing to the side, as it had pulled her shoulder, but before Eliot could attempt to leap across the dried-fruit-and-glass danger zone spread across his normally immaculate kitchen floor, Parker pulled herself together, steadying herself with a cabinet door.

"You've got to be careful!" Eliot demanded. Parker rolled her eyes, and Eliot narrowed his. "Wait, why am I even talking to you? I thought I said quiet!"

Parker opened her mouth to protest again, but something in Eliot's face had her shutting her mouth with a little _click_. She refused to so much as glance at him while he carefully got out the broom and dustpan, clearing away the debris with expert precision, turning on all the lights and walking around the area several times in hopes that the light would glance off any errant shards. When he was sure that the area was finally clean, Eliot nodded his head. Parker was about to get down when Eliot fixed her with a steely glare. "You're not supposed to put any weight on that knee, remember? I'm sure you ignored that fact when you got out here in the first place, but as long as I'm around, I'm not going to let you abuse yourself and set your recovery back."

Parker looked like there were many, many things she wanted to say in response to that, none of which were kind in the least. By some small miracle, she held her tongue. After a loaded moment of silence, Parker hopped off the counter onto her good leg and pointedly made her way across the small kitchen to the table in the corner on one foot. Eliot watched for any show of weakness, knowing that if he didn't watch for her, Parker wouldn't watch for herself. It made him a little sad, to see her so blatantly ignoring her body's concerns, as though she couldn't afford to let them matter. Eliot shook his head- he was probably projecting or some bullshit like that. He didn't do psychology.

When Parker was safely seated in one of his kitchen chairs, legs stretched out before her and head propped up by the arm that wasn't in the sling, she gave him a pointed look, saying quite clearly, "See? And I did it all by my lonesome," without ever needing to say a word.

_Well, tough shit_ , he thought. He had a thick skin, and he was fully capable of tying her down to the bed if he had to. _She will just have to deal with this. Why on_ Earth _did I think this was a good idea again? I was ready to toss her out the window every previous time I've kept an eye on her, and I_ knew _this was going to be about a hundred times worse. How could I have thought this was a good idea, really?_ Eliot huffed a little sigh, the answer already rising from the depths of his mind.

_Because you knew you could keep her safe. She trusts you, and you trust her, most of the time. You don't want to see her hurt herself by pushing herself beyond her limits, and you'd never forgive whoever was watching her if something happened while she was staying with someone else. And you'd never forgive yourself if something happened to extinguish her brightness, her naiveté, her innocence, the way she smiles so brightly- and if she was forever debilitated because she didn't take care of herself now, it would be as good as a death sentence. She's crazy, god yes, but she has these little glimmers of kindness and gentleness that-_

"Pancakes."

Eliot's thought process was momentarily derailed, something that should not have relieved him as much as it did. Thinking about Parker as anything but crazy made things...complicated. Hopelessly complicated.

"Pancakes?" Eliot repeated rather dumbly.

Parker nodded defiantly. "That's what I want to eat. Pancakes. With _real_ maple syrup. I saw it in your pantry. I know you have it." Her accusatory tone seemed to imply that she suspected that Eliot was planning on somehow blaming the lack of ingredients as being a good reason not to make pancakes.

Eliot didn't have a problem with pancakes, as a matter of fact. They were one of his favorite foods. He didn't have them often, because they were an unhealthy indulgence at best, a heart attack waiting to happen at worst- especially the way he liked them best, smothered in whipped cream and maple syrup and blueberries and chocolate, the blueberries being the only thing he could even remotely call 'good for you'- but sometimes a meal made entirely out of sugar was good for the soul, as his mother used to say. "Um, sure," he agreed rather belatedly, irritation draining away to leave something curious in the pit of his stomach. "I can do pancakes."

Parker looked equally surprised. "You can?"

Eliot's brow furrowed. Ah, yes, the irritation was back already. "You just said that's what you wanted to eat. Have you changed your mind already?" he demanded. "Because I'm not going to play 'let's guess what Parker wants for breakfast'," he informed her shortly, just barely resisting the urge to cross his hands over his chest in the ultimate 'so there' gesture.

Parker's blue eyes blinked up at him, suspiciously guileless. "No, pancakes are good. With coffee?" She asked hopefully, face creasing in her best smile, the one that seemed specially designed to make everyone in the vicinity cave and do whatever it was she wanted them to do.

"Yeah. With coffee," Eliot agreed shortly. "Now, you are going to sit there and become lost in your own thoughts for about half an hour. Can you do that?"

"Probably not," Parker said easily, and it was half a second before Eliot realized that she'd disagreed. "That's too boring."

"Do you want a book?"

"No."

"Music?"

"No."

"TV?"

Parker wavered for the merest instance, and Eliot pounced on it, the fighter in him sensing a trace of weakness. Anything to get her out of his hair for a few minutes. "I'll even help you over there, and..." he trailed off, looking for something to sweeten the deal. "I'll even let you eat in there, so long as you promise not to get anything on the couch."

Parker's eyes widened, the perfect picture of a child whose been given the pony she always wanted for Christmas. "You promise?"

Eliot couldn't help but relax a little. Parker looked so earnest, so genuine, so excited. It was hard not to be swayed by that image. "Sure."

Moving Parker the twenty or so steps it took to get from his kitchen to the main room was relatively painless, and Parker was settled on the couch, stretched out and with the remote in her hand, in short order.

Eliot turned to go, mentally cataloguing everything that he'd need for pancakes- real pancakes, of course, made from scratch, none of that pre-made junk- when Parker said in a quiet voice that Eliot nearly missed, "Sorry."

"Excuse me?" Eliot asking, wondering if he'd misheard her.

"Sorry. For breaking the glass, and knocking over your dried fruit," Parker said contritely, a blush bringing a soft warmth and color to her face. She very carefully did not look at Eliot, instead spending the entire time gazing at her toes as though there were the most interesting thing that she'd ever seen.

"Um, thanks," Eliot said, for lack of a better response, heart beating erratically. He made his escape to the kitchen; as he did so, he heard the television come on.

_What the hell was that_? Eliot wondered to himself, utterly confused. Parker wasn't someone who apologized on a whim, either- she'd been as much of a pain the previous times that she'd stayed with him, but she'd never apologized for her behavior, and Eliot hadn't demanded it. It was enough that Parker usually made some sort of effort to be solicitous after the entire affair was done; on previous occasions, for example, she'd gifted him with a movie once and a recipe book another time. Eliot had always assumed that was more the work of Nate or Sophie encouraging her, and he'd known well enough not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

It seemed he would have to reevaluate his assumptions, because it looked like those gifts might have been more voluntary than he'd previously guessed.

Eliot sighed- he'd been doing that an awful lot this morning, in his opinion- and ignored his thoughts, focusing on making a proper pancake batter and setting up his coffeemaker with his favorite brew.

Half an hour later, almost to the minute, Eliot re-emerged from the kitchen feeling quite a bit more centered. Cooking had always had that effect on him, relaxing him and leaving him more focused, not unlike a good workout. There were three pancakes on each plate, and another short stack in the kitchen if either of them were hungry after demolishing what he'd already dished out. He'd piled his own high with blueberries, chocolate chips, maple syrup and whipped cream, per his liking, and put strawberries, butter and maple syrup on Parker's, as per her instructions. He set them on the coffee table, and returned to the kitchen to get silverware and two mugs of coffee, as well as a glass of milk for himself.

"Here, kitty, kitty," Parker drawled, eyes lighting up with mischief when she saw what Eliot carried.

"Milk is good for you," Eliot reprimanded severely. "I ought to make you drink some, as a matter of fact. It builds strong bones," he quipped, then turned more serious. "But really, you'll need the extra calcium if you're going to heal properly."

"I'll take calcium supplements. But unless you're feeding me milk and fresh chocolate chip cookies, the only way you're getting that stuff down my throat is if you force it down," Parked said around a mouthful of pancake.

Eliot's lips thinned in distaste, and with exaggerated manners he took a reasonable bite for himself, chewed it completely, and then swallowed before answering, "So you _want_ to be stuck in here with me for the extra week or two it'll take to heal without a regular supply of calcium?" He had her there, at any rate. Parker's answering expression said it all; there was no small amount of horror at the idea that she would be stuck with Eliot any longer than she needed to. With a sigh, he stood and went back to the kitchen, rooting around the drawers in hopes that he would find a vitamin supplement that would hold Parker over for a while. He didn't normally use them himself, since he was generally very careful with what he ate, but he usually took them as soon as he was feeling under the weather along with some Theraflu to offset whatever disease he'd managed to pick up. Sure enough, there was a half empty bottle he vaguely remembered shoving in the drawer a couple of months ago.

When Eliot had fished out a pill, already bemoaning the loss of heat from his pancakes that had surely occurred while he was busy playing mother hen, he was not in the least pleased when Parker wrinkled her nose at the pill, having already devoured half her stack of pancakes and showing no signs of stopping.

"Take it," he growled, real anger bleeding into his voice. Parker looked a little taken aback, but she popped it in her mouth willingly enough as a result, downing most of her coffee and gagging as though it had been the most disgusting thing in the world to ingest.

Eliot had no sympathy for her whatsoever. Frankly, as long as she swallowed it, he didn't care if it turned her skin a bright purple. Instead, he felt rather vindicated, and with the air of someone who was not going to be budged by anything short of the room being on fire, he returned to his pancakes without feeling the least amount of guilt that he hadn't even done his morning workout, and it was already verging on seven in the morning. Parker, as usual, was just as much work. He stabbed a bit of pancake rather vindictively, mopping up the whipped cream which had sadly started to deflate in his absence. He chewed thoughtfully, finally starting to relax, even if only minutely.

He ignored whatever it was that she'd put on- some sort of comedy show that he didn't recognize offhand; the characters in it were rather young, so he assumed it was probably some sort of teen show, which wouldn't have been to his interest anyways- and stared at Parker instead. Her face was slowly starting to show real signs of strain, and Eliot looked at the second half of his pancakes mournfully. "I'll get your meds," he murmured.

"And more pancakes. And more coffee."

"I'm going to give you water too. You need to stay hydrated."

Again, Parker made a face, and Eliot fought the urge to tear her a new one over her continued refusal and general behavior. He reminded himself that this was the way Parker usually behaved, equal parts childish and weird, and short of rewriting history, there wasn't anything he could do to change her. He took himself out of the room without another word, picking up her plate, silverware and cup as he did so; he brought her back more pancakes and coffee, picked up his own dirty silverware and deposited it in the sink under a little water to keep the syrup from gluing itself to the plate. He filled a glass with water, snagging the bottle of pain medication the doctor had prescribed and bringing it into the main room. Parker ignored him, focusing on the TV, laughing a little too brightly around her gritted teeth. Broken bones _hurt_ , and they didn't stop hurting just because they'd been bandaged or splinted or started the healing process. Eliot watched carefully as Parker took the pills, mouth tight and eyes dark and hands shaking ever so slightly.

That...that Eliot could sympathize with, he really could. Pain medication dulled the senses, screwed with the mind, and in both his and Parker's business, that was a fatal flaw that would be exploited. She'd never had to take anything quite so serious before, and even now she wouldn't be taking it for very long, but just the exposure was probably part of what was setting her so on edge.

Eliot placed a hand on Parker's shoulder absentmindedly as he picked up her dirty dishes and set them in the sink to soak next to his own.

_I'll keep you safe_ , Eliot promised, if only in his mind _, you can trust me._


	4. Chapter 4

Parker wanted to crawl out of her skin.

That was probably the simplest terms for how she felt, because there was no other way to describe the way ghostly fingers seemed to be running across her flesh, the way she couldn't get a full breath in her lungs, the way she felt chained to the couch with a physical weight.

It had started that morning, when she'd woken up at 5:47, disoriented and heart palpitating as the remainder of some dream fell away. She'd lain there in terror for a full minute, memory of the last day or two fuzzy at best. She remembered being brought into the hospital, being woken up every so often by overly concerned nurses who wanted her to remember things when she just wanted to sleep. She remembered seeing Nate, and Eliot, and slowly but surely she began to piece everything back together, trembling with the force of her anxiety. The car- they'd come back to Boston after she got out of the hospital, and she was staying with Eliot, like she had the times before when she was injured. She realized that she was lying in his spare room, on the bed, breath coming in tight little gasps from the force of her panic. Her arm was tight against her body, and she ached all over, but if she didn't move _right now_ she was going to break in a way she didn't know how to fix.

And she was already too broken for comfort.

She heaved in a breath, trying to center herself, the way she did before a big jump, to go to that place in her mind where everything was quiet and still, but the breath only served to remind her of the existence of her ribs. More importantly, she was reminded of the fact that several of them were cracked, and as she blinked blearily in the darkness of the room, she just felt like one massive bruise.

But she couldn't get rid of that urge to move and move now, to get a breath of air that wasn't from inside a room. She sat up, wincing as she did so, gingerly getting out of bed, staring down at herself like she'd been transported into an alien body. She'd fallen before, of course- but never during a job. When she'd been doing it in practice, she'd never been truly startled by falling, because she knew, at least on some level, that it was going to happen. She never remembered aching quite this bad, but then she dimly recalled that she'd landed poorly, at least if her body was anything to go by. Her mouth twisted, knowing that Archie would have been patently ashamed of a fall like that. She should have been quicker, should have been more wary, should have been anything, really.

And now she was caught in her own body, when she least wanted it. She wanted to get rid of these thoughts by getting herself lost in freefall, she positively itched to do something to outrun her own skin.

But even she could tell that she wasn't in any condition to go rappelling, not when she couldn't take a full breath, could barely move her arm. Archie had hammered into her head that she shouldn't _ever_ go jumping without being physically and mentally prepared, because that was a very good way to get killed.

And getting killed was bad for business.

Parker sighed, testing out her ability to walk. Her knee hurt, as expected, but nowhere close to the pains of the rest of her body. It would suffice for now.

She limped across the hall and into the kitchen and set about digging for food, for real food- something that wasn't _healthy_. She could afford to indulge herself, and god, she desperately needed the chocolate, needed something to distract her from herself.

And then she'd knocked over the dried fruit and the glass, and Eliot had come out, and next thing she knew, she was watching him dry his hands on a dishtowel and tell her that he was going to do a light workout. He'd brought out her phone, an enormous glass of water, and a few snacks that could sit at room temperature for two or three hours without going bad. She knew that she had probably interrupted his usual early morning routine, but she could only feel a mild guilt. Eliot had been keeping her distracted, mostly, and so was the TV, and between the two she'd felt mostly human again for at least a while eating his unfairly amazing pancakes. Now that Eliot had disappeared to change and workout, however, the drugs were really starting to sink in, thick and cloying as they swept over her system, and though they eased the aches and pains of her body, everything felt too bright, the scrape of the couch against her bare skin like an electric shock.

It was supremely unfair, to feel like this.

She dozed lightly for a while; she could hear Eliot in the other room, footsteps light but the _wirr_ of the treadmill unmistakable, a low hum that pervaded every corner of the room. It stopped eventually, but she didn't notice it right away. She did notice when the clink of weights began, and she found herself idly taking note of the reps as she stared blankly at the screen. Those noises stopped eventually as well, and the sound of the shower started. Eliot came out eventually, probably around lunchtime if she had to guess, but she'd been pretty much dead to the world at that point, zonked out by meds and the strange sleeping schedule she'd kept for the last two days. Not that she didn't normally keep odd hours- Eliot had always been the structured one of the group, not her- but these hours somehow seemed even weirder than normal, sliding together with frightening frequency.

It wasn't until later that afternoon that the meds began to fade from her system, and though that meant the return of her pain, she also felt far more clear-headed. With that clear-headedness came the returning feeling of being betrayed by one's body, however, and Parker couldn't quite tell which one she hated more- she had no doubt, however, that she hated them both; the only difference was in the degree of hatred. To add insult to injury, she had another six weeks of this sort of enforced vacation, as Nate had described it. She hadn't had the heart to tell them that she simply refused to consider it a vacation unless she'd had at least one opportunity to go spelunking, for example. The trace of medication still in her system made her giggle at that. There was no word more worthy of inspiring laughter than spelunking.

"Spelunking," she said aloud to herself, though not loud enough to bring her to Eliot's attention. She giggled softly, and then quieted. The TV had been turned off at some point when she'd been asleep, or lost in her own thoughts perhaps, and she struggled up, hoping that being upright might help her stay focused. Her hands started trembling again, sudden anxiety sweeping her up. She felt too out of control, too loose and free. She smoothed her free hand over her good leg a couple of times, getting rid of the sweat that had turned her palms clammy.

"Are you back with the land of the living yet?" The voice was low, on the rougher side. Parker knew it down to the marrow of her bones, and that was the only reason she wasn't startled.

"Barely," she told him wryly, turning to face him. He probably showered after he worked out, Parker knew, but his hair was long enough that it was still just a touch damp since it was tied up and away from his face. "I'm on the verge of dying from boredom, though."

Eliot rolled his eyes, impatient. "Well, what do you want to do?"

"Go jump off a building," Parker said unreasonably, feeling cranky.

"No. I don't want to have to explain your dead body to the authorities when you kill yourself in the attempt," Eliot attempted to say in his most reasonable tone of voice. A note of frustration and anger was creeping in despite his best efforts, however; it didn't bother Parker, rather it just made her sigh a little, as though she were being polite by not mentioning how completely unreasonable Eliot was being.

That got a reaction, as she'd thought it would, and she took no small amount of glee from watching Eliot's brows snap together instantly. It was far too easy to vex the man. "How about doing something that won't injure you further?" he growled out through gritted teeth.

Parker's momentary lighter mood fell away, and she scowled up at Eliot, brow furrowed. "There's nothing for me to do," she complained. "I can't even move off this damn couch. I can't do anything fun at all."

"You seemed perfectly content to watch cartoons and kid shows all morning," Eliot accused in retaliation. "Doesn't that count as fun?"

Parker rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that was this morning," she said, as if that was all the explanation anyone could possibly need. "I need...I need..." she gestured a little helplessly, at a loss for words. She couldn't manage to find the words that would accurately describe her need to move, and she found herself lapsing into sullen silence as a result. She ignored the sympathy on Eliot's face, knowing that he couldn't possibly understand what it was she was thinking.

Then, as usual the voice that reminded her a little of Nate and a little of Sophie tempered her thoughts, softening them unexpectedly as she remembered how childish and bright Eliot had seemed when doing no more than eating pancakes, a simple joy that warmed her inside out even as she purposefully vexed him.

Perhaps she had done a disservice in assuming that just because Eliot was their hitter, he didn't have a real sense of emotion- hadn't he proved that time in again in the most subtle of ways, reminding her that his anger was just a veneer? Parker exhaled, slow and long. She'd tried being angry all the time once, when she was a kid and didn't know any better- she'd tried to be angry at her circumstances, at what she'd been forced to endure, but being angry just made her sad, and turned her into a person she didn't like, someone like her father, and that made her do very, very bad things. That's why she tucked her anger away in her special place, where the others couldn't see it and use it against her. Her anger was a dangerous thing. She didn't want the others to see her like that, broken, _really_ broken.

Relenting, she tried again, focusing on the fact that it was sympathy, and not pity that softened the corners of Eliot's mouth into something that was almost approachable. "It's like bugs, crawling under my skin. I can't reach them, though," she explained haltingly, rubbing her hands over her arms as if she could soothe away the feeling. The words worked their way out of her mouth as though they were sharp stones, biting and cutting, and she had to expel them before they wounded her a little too deeply. "It's never been this bad this fast before. Usually I have a week before I'm driving myself up the wall in an effort to get out of the room. I think it's because I know I'll be tied down for almost two months before I can do any real work again." She was careful to describe it in terms that Eliot might possibly understand, because she'd suffered through enough confusion her in life.

Eliot's eyes glittered in the afternoon light. "I was stabbed once, doing a job in Brazil," he answered slowly, the words coming with as much effort as Parker's had. "I thought I was going to drive myself nuts. I kept pulling my stitches because I couldn't keep still, always pacing across my hiding place. As long as I kept the wound clean, I knew I was going to be fine, but being trapped in that room was far worse than any injury sustained. It's like you're being tied up, trapped, like if you see that mark in the corner where someone once carved a star one more time you're going to burn the room down, just so you know you won't ever see those particular four walls again. It wasn't so much the room itself, it was the fact that you knew exactly how long you were going to be there, down to the minute, with all your excursions planned and carefully orchestrated and you can't just _move_ for the sake of moving." And there- Parker no longer had to trick herself into believing that the expression on Eliot's face was sympathy. There was a note of truth to his words, and a note of strange ruefulness and clarity. "It's like that, right?"

Parker sighed in relief, brow relaxing a little. She squinted at him. "Are you sure you don't have latent telepathic powers?" she asked, a little suspiciously. "Because if so, I just want to say that I will get my revenge if you've invaded my mind."

Eliot barked out a laugh at that, short and sharp and surprised. "I have many skills, but mind reading is not amongst them, I'm afraid," he said, and it was clear that those words in that combination was not something that he'd ever thought he'd find himself saying. Parker had a way of making you rethink your world, however. "No, if I had telepathy, I'd..." Eliot paused, flummoxed. "Actually, I don't know what I'd do if I had telepathy. It's not exactly something that comes up in conversation very often. Except with you, apparently," Eliot said, grin making his blue eyes glow.

"I'm a very talented person," Parker agreed, like it was only a given, small smile creeping across her face.

Eliot laughed again, as bright as the first time, but to Parker it was just as unexpected. She'd never had a talent for making people relax like Sophie did; most of the time the best thing she inspired was awkward silence that made her too aware of how blisteringly different she was, how odd, how unusual.

"I'm afraid there isn't a whole lot of ways to change that, unfortunately," Eliot was saying in a low voice, though, and there was something very much like shame and embarrassment flitting across his face for some reason before it cleared. "Though maybe..." he trailed off a little, contemplating something. He reached out a hand, which Parker took, cautious but curious, wondering where it was Eliot was going to take her. As before, he supported her on the left side, preventing her from putting her weight on her knee. He was pressed up against her side, body large and warm, but not imposing. She knew that he wouldn't ever even dream of raising a finger towards her, not now, not ever, and that too reassured her. He led her out of the main room and down the hallway to the room he used as a gym. It was an open and airy space that smelled like sweat and soap and something that Parker couldn't quite place. It smelled like Eliot himself, mostly, and Parker inhaled deeply.

On the opposite side of the room was an enormous window seat that took up most of the wall. "I was going to use this as my bedroom," he explained, and Parker was so close to him that she could hear his low voice vibrating through his frame, "but the air circulation in the other room wasn't as good, and my entire apartment was starting to stink, so I switched my stuff. It's a bit of a waste of a nice view, I suppose." He led her over and helped her onto the window seat, making sure she was seating comfortably before withdrawing his hands; the windows were cracked open, letting through a nice cool breeze. The cushions smelled freshly washed, and Parker found herself relaxing automatically, the desperate need to move dissipating, though it didn't disappear. It was manageable now, however, more like an unpleasant undercurrent instead of a forceful demand on her body that screamed that she _move, move, move_. From here, with the windows cracked, she could peer out into the city, gazing at all the hustling and bustling that was happening below her. She wasn't a part of the city, not really, but it was better, _leagues_ better than being trapped on that infernal couch with nothing to do but run around in circles in her own skull, drugged by pain medication and boredom and desperately wishing for some real clarity of thought.

She leaned forward, letting her rest her head on the cool pane of glass of the window, muscles relaxing and eyes slipping closed as she breathed for a moment, just breathed, focusing on making sure her panic and fear and anxiety from earlier drained even further until she barely noticed it. She could smell the city from here, could smell the gas and the people and the food, could hear the incessant talking and pigeons, could see the impassive stone and metal buildings all around her.

It made her feel, for the briefest moments, that she wasn't trapped here in the apartment because her own body had failed her when she needed it most. There was nothing she could possibly say to express how grateful she was at that moment, that somehow Eliot had known exactly what she needed and had provided it, and furthermore had provided _understanding_ and _sympathy_ without cutting her with pity. A rare warmth swelled in her chest.

She sat there for a moment, feeling almost human again.

When she turned to Eliot- she didn't even know what she was going to say, only that she had to say something, anything- there was no one there.

Eliot had already disappeared.

~*~

It was worst in the beginning, when she could barely make it down the hall of Eliot's apartment before collapsing, knee giving out under her weight. She spent countless hours those first few weeks either on the window seat in the gym, gazing outside and wishing desperately that she could go out for just a minute or two, or on the couch, trying not to hurl the remote at the screen just for the sake of doing something, anything that would let her move.

Nate helped. He brought her news of the outside world. Well, not news of the world at large, precisely, more news of her world- he would bring her stories of thefts, both those that weren't released to the public and those that were, and he would entertain her with how the crime had been committed and who could have possibly done it. She would tell him how she would do them, what the possible obstacles were, how hard it would be to fence the final object, letting him slip all the further into the world of thievery. It was entertaining, to see that great mind work, to let him try and guess how the thieves had pulled something off, only for her to correct him. He was good, very good, and Parker rarely had something to correct or alter in his plans and explanations, but it was an interesting mental exercise. Strangely, it didn't make her want to go back out and be a part of that again. She still adored stealing, naturally, and wanted nothing more sometimes than to get herself entangled in a really good heist, but it wasn't about the money anymore. Or at least, not all about the money. She remembered Tara, remembered how she'd demanded a cut of each job, claiming that she wasn't doing this out of the goodness of her heart, the way the others were. Parker's first instinct had been to reject that, to argue that they _were_ getting paid- but they weren't, not really, not with any real substantial funds beyond what they could scrape together from whatever was leftover after they'd helped the victims. Of course, they weren't all straight- she knew that Hardison and Eliot, at least, had their fingers in some pies of dubious morality, but even that had tapered off dramatically as they became more enmeshed in this...whatever it was they were calling this. Parker herself hadn't done a private job in more than a year and a half. Parker wasn't entirely sure how she felt about the whole idea that she was no longer the woman she once was, but when Nate smiled at her, clean and bright and somehow decidedly young, she figured that it didn't really matter.

Sophie helped. She took the opportunity to keep Parker's mind busy, expanding her knowledge of grifting, explaining how to make people believe her, teaching her how to read the people around her, because they would give her the subtle clues she would need to make her cover work. Sophie, naturally, wasn't all serious- she was too light hearted and witty for that, and Parker basked in the glow of such personalized attention, though she wasn't always sure why Sophie had chosen to give her time and effort to Parker. Parker knew she wasn't normal, after all, but Sophie always shook her head, claiming that Parker could use it to her advantage, coaxing her, showing her, praising her. Of course, Sophie didn't let it stop at grifting. She was also teaching Parker all sorts of useless skills that she claimed every woman should know. Parker was still skeptical of the relative merits of being able to braid hair- though she could now, if not very well, but she'd done it to please the woman whose flawless femininity and charm had intimidated Parker in the beginning. Sophie combed through magazines with her, picking imaginary outfits out. When Parker had pointed out that she'd never wear any of the crazy combinations that they'd come up with, Sophie said the words, "Lady Gaga," and Parker found herself shutting her mouth with a _click_.

Hardison helped. He'd come the evening of the first day she'd spent in Eliot's apartment and set her up with every possible gadget she could have dreamed of wanting and more than a few that she had no use for at all, but nodded and smiled and tested them out when Hardison looked at her expectantly. The only thing she had any real interest in was the laptop that Hardison had given to her. It was completely outfitted with any games she could possibly want, all of her music files had been transferred from the computer she used in her apartment to this one, and about a eleventy billion movies and tv shows that had some sort of spy or theft theme to them had been saved on the computer- everything from James Bond to The Italian Job to White Collar. If she was in the least interested in any sort of media, Hardison had it covered. She spent a good portion of the time she spent watching the shows and movies criticizing their technique in her loudest voice, the one that frequently had not only Eliot, but Nate, Sophie and Hardison- when they were around- complaining about her "need to correct a fictional reality". She only did it when they were all there to hear her, and they knew she only did it when they were there to hear her and didn't say anything, so she figured that it was an acceptable state of affairs for all persons involved.

Eliot...Eliot didn't help, per se. That is, he did help- he made sure she took her medications, he made sure that she fed herself, he was there when she tested how well her knee was healing, he made sure that she was comfortable, he made sure that she successfully fought the urge to claw at her skin when the waiting and the silence got so bad that she thought she was going to go crazy. Or rather, even crazier. But even more than helping, Eliot was just _there_ , a steady constant presence that she both wanted to get rid of and tie forever to her side. She was getting used to this, _too_ used to this, this whole living with another person lark when she'd loathed even the concept before- even the previous times she'd stayed with Eliot she hadn't been this comfortable, this confident, this genuinely happy in another person's presence.

It made her look over her shoulder, occasionally, for the next sign of the Apocalypse.

~*~

Eliot was, by nature, a rather taciturn person. Though he didn't outright disagree with the revolving door that seemed to have been installed at the entrance into his apartment, he was always the first one to make pointed comments about how early he gets up in the morning. This statement usually got a mixed bag of reactions, from Sophie's understanding glances, to Nate's irritated huff of breath, to Hardison's long and drawn out commentary on people who voluntarily go to bed at ten o'clock on a regular basis.

Sometimes Parker was glad for Eliot's strict bedtime. It was exhausting, to try and be cheerful all the damn time, because that's what they expected. It made her wish that she could go back to the days where the only one she cared about was Archie, a fact which almost never affected her daily life because he'd left her on her own while she was still in her late teens. He didn't require her to put on a happy face for him every day. He just expected a few favors here and there, perhaps he wanted a job done by her as he got older and wasn't as limber.

Nate and Sophie and Hardison seemed to expect that their mere presences should serve as a pick-me-up sometimes, when all she wanted to do was be alone for a little while, wanted to dive off a building just to feel the wind rush past her face, to let her step back into simpler times when the most complex problem she had to face was what her next job would be.

But when they'd all finally left for the day, Eliot never seemed like another person who needed to speak with her. He would stay silent, sometimes for the entire remainder of the evening, letting her do whatever it was she wanted to do. Sometimes Parker instigated conversation, but more often she just found herself studying Eliot, wondering what he'd be doing right now if she wasn't around.

Then she would think about what she'd be doing if she wasn't staying with Eliot, and she was strangely disquieted.


	5. Chapter 5

Eliot was always taken aback by how blasé Parker was about some of her skills. He'd get used to one only to get blindsided by another, because Parker was always pulling out something new.

Even so, Parker's talent for art never failed to surprise him- and never failed to make him want to applaud in awe. Eliot wasn't going to kid himself- he didn't really have an eye for art, not in the least. He might be able to steal it, but he didn't have any particular opinion about the pieces themselves. Parker, however, had confided that she'd once stolen a private Monet simply because she'd liked it. What had surprised him about the entire affair, of course, was that she'd already gotten fakes out of the country before stealing the original. She sold the fakes for twice the sum the original Monet was worth, and had saved the original Monet for her own private collection. As a matter of fact, almost every item that she had kept from the days when she was thieving regularly were all pieces of art in some shape, way, or form. She loved it in all its various guises. So when she'd finally revealed her talent for _creating_ art, well, it shouldn't have surprised any of them.

But it had.

And she'd said something like, "I thought everyone could do that," and Eliot hadn't been able to do more than stare at her blankly.

So in the end, he really did think it was a good use of his money to pick up some basic art supplies at a local store and give them to Parker. Or rather, he left them in an obvious place with a post-it saying, "For you," on it. He figured that even Parker could connect the dots from there, because if at all possible, Eliot didn't want to have his little act of kindness addressed, mostly because he steadfastly refused to believe it was kindness. It was mostly him just trying to control Parker's more exuberant side, to say the least, and keep her tied to the couch for a few more days, until her knee was finally healed up. The last thing he wanted was to come home from running an errand or two and find her on a chair investigating the possibilities of her being able to escape through the window in the bathroom.

Again.

Parker, of course, insisted on being completely contrary to his wishes. Though he hadn't exactly explicitly stated said wishes, the fact that he at no point addressed the art supplies should have told Parker exactly how little he wanted to discuss the matter. She'd first demanded clarification as to who, exactly the art supplies were for, because putting them on her bed was clearly not enough of a hint. When Eliot had informed her that yes, they were for her, and yes, he had bought them and yes, he did intend for her to keep them- and god, wasn't that sad, wasn't that a little bit _more_ than sad that she couldn't accept that the gift was just because he'd wanted to do something nice for her, keep that mind of hers from turning inwards because he knew that the end results couldn't possibly be pretty?- she'd absolutely fucking _glowed_ and Eliot's heart had gone into palpitations that still brought a smile to his face during the idle moments when the memory rose in his mind.

And then, precisely like he'd once done to his mother, Parker would stick her pictures to the fridge.

The first time he'd seen it, Eliot had been at a complete and total loss and had stared at the image for several moments. Parker, naturally had chosen that moment to appear. "Is that okay?" she asked tentatively. "To put things on your fridge for now, I mean. I'll take them with me when I leave."

Eliot was hardly listening. "Is that...me?" he asked, nonplussed.

Parker was distracted for a moment, but for a moment only. "Yes. Can I put things on your fridge?" she repeated, intent.

"That looks _just_ like me!" Eliot exclaimed; he didn't like to fool himself- as with the other parts of his life, he was extremely realistic when it came to his appearance. He knew he wasn't the most gorgeous guy on the streets, but he wasn't exactly cursing his lot in life either. Parker's charcoal portrait was positively surreal, like staring in a black and white mirror of himself.

"Well, it _is_ you," Parker pointed out reasonably, beginning to sound impatient. "I'm pretty sure people are supposed to recognize their own faces. Well? Can I use the fridge or not?"

It appeared that she wouldn't be swayed on the point. "Uh, sure," Eliot agreed, mind not truly on Parker's question. "Sure, you can keep them there. It doesn't really matter to me." Now that the subject had been brought back to his attention, however, Eliot leaned forward, squinting at the magnets she used. He generally used them to remind himself to pay his bills on time by virtue of placing them on the fridge in clear view. Parker had added- or rather, had probably either Sophie or Hardison buy and bring to her- another three magnets, one in the shape of several puppies in a haphazard pile, one a square one with the phrase, "I can only please one person a day. Today isn't your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either," and one a bright blue heart studded with pieces of glitter. He tilted his head a little, wondering how he could have possibly missed such garish decorations to his otherwise streamlined apartment, and then realized it fit right in with the eclectic mix of things that Parker had slowly accumulated in the apartment, so much so that he'd started treating it all like it belonged there.

  
p>And wasn't _that_ the most surreal bit of all? </p>

Parker paused suddenly, on the verge of limping back to the couch- her knee was getting much better, but Eliot still didn't want her to put any major strain on it. "Do you like it?"

Eliot stared again at the picture, taken back yet again at the likeness. "Parker, you could probably pass this off as a black and white photograph of me. It's that good." He shook his head, faltering on exactly how he was supposed to show her how incredible the drawing was.

Parker just nodded though, once, short and sharp. "You should smile more often," she said briefly, nodding towards the picture, where a faint smile was hovering around the drawing-Eliot's face. It was a mild expression, but it transformed his face in ways that Eliot couldn't quite put words to. "I did other drawings, but that one's best," she told him decisively. "You looked angry in the other ones, and I like it better when you smile. You should do it more often," she repeated, as though Eliot needed the reminder.

When it was clear that Eliot was flabbergasted, Parker just gave a little shrug and returned to her seat on the couch. Eliot hear the TV turn on, and then the quiet murmur of voices.

Eliot stood a long time, gazing at the picture.

~*~

Though no one really discussed it, it was generally assumed that Parker would stay with Eliot until she was completely healed. She technically probably would have been okay if she'd returned to her apartment after her knee was healed, but no one was comfortable with the idea of Parker being on her own when she was in the least debilitated. They looked after their own, after all. Nate, of course, had quietly and subtly offered his home as an option to both Eliot and Parker in case they were getting sick of one another, but both had been quick to deny that they had the urge to move, reassuring him in terms that left no doubt as to the fact that the desire for Parker to stay was completely and utterly mutual. The refusal of his home was so quick, in fact, that it made Nate pause for a moment or two afterwards, thinking very hard, before he left go have a very quiet, very intense conversation with Sophie.

As usual, talking with Sophie made a lot of things slide into focus. When he finally left her apartment, it was with a secretive little smile on his lips.

~*~

It had been so easy to ignore at first. He'd been able to rationalize it away with ease; he hadn't even given it real thought, if he was being perfectly honest. It made sense, even.

Parker, for as long as he'd known her, had taken refuge in height. Eliot had a lot of thoughts about that fact, not the least of which was that for Parker, height usually meant more escape routes, ensuring that she would be safer. It was only to be expected, at first. The last thing Eliot wanted was for Parker to be climbing all over his furniture or hanging from the ceiling for some reason known only to her while she could barely stand on her knee. Well, he didn't want her to be doing it at all, but he _especially_ didn't need to be dealing with that while she was supposed to be healing.

Even after her knee was more or less fine, about three or so weeks into her stay with Eliot, Parker kept mostly to the chairs and the couch- that is to say, she used the chairs and couch the way they were meant to be used, instead of doing handstands on the chairs in the kitchen or perching against the back of the couch, balancing nimbly as though it was the most comfortable position she'd ever been in and scaring Eliot half to death with her feats of daring. She was, in fact, positively conscientious about the way she used the furniture in his house, which was a complete departure from the norm and unnerved him greatly.

He'd expected that when he'd given her knee the all clear, she would be bouncing around his apartment for no discernable reasons within hours, but she'd just thanked him- another strange new facet to Parker's personality that Eliot couldn't help but regard with a certain amount of suspicion- and returned to criticizing the movie she was watching in her loudest and most obnoxious voice, demanding that Eliot, "Come see this- you won't believe it. That's a terrible to get up the side of a building! What are they trying to teach here?" Eliot had long since given up arguing that the films were not intended to be watched quite as seriously as Parker did.

And so he watched Parker, patiently waiting for the little niggling feeling of unease in the back of his mind to unfold itself and tell him what he was so anxious about.

~*~

Eliot liked to cook.

Parker did not.

She did, however, like to eat the food that Eliot cooked, because the food that Eliot cooked was far more delicious than almost every piece of food she'd ever eaten that Eliot had not cooked.

She paused for a moment, thinking that over. Yes. That made sense.

Parker wasn't exactly sure how it had started, but one day, bored, she'd wandered into the kitchen as Eliot was making dinner for the pair of them. Hardison had just left, and Parker suspected that it was mostly because of her reenactment of some horror film she'd watched that day as she practiced some rudimentary yoga, doing what she could to keep up her flexibility. She was beginning to feel...off, as a result of the enforced lack of exercise, but now that she could finally put her full weight on her knee, she wasn't about to waste any time. Not long after she'd come out of the shower (which had taken longer than normal, largely due to a mishap with the plastic bag she was forced to keep over her arm that had resulted in her nearly ripping the shower curtain) Hardison had joined them, where Parker had proceeded to answer, in exquisite detail, exactly what she'd been up to.

He'd been rather pale as he'd left, Parker realized, and then shook her head in dismissal of it. She was probably imagining things.

It hadn't been long before tantalizing smells from the kitchen had driven her from the couch, where she'd been sketching to the kitchen, stomach starting protest to that she hadn't eaten since lunch and it was hungry, dammit.

"What are you making?" Parker asked curiously, leaning over the pan and picking up a spoon, planning on prodding the shrimp that were currently turning a nice, bright pink. She could smell garlic in the air, and something that smelled like onions but wasn't quite as sharp, and lemons. A lot of lemons.

"Shrimp linguini," Eliot provided shortly. Parker vaguely remembered having such a dish before, but she couldn't remember when or where. Disregarding the thought, because it didn't matter, she instead focused on what Eliot was doing. Parker was entranced by the smooth movement of Eliot's hands and the way the blade in his hand flashed as he turned a rather large bundle of something green- parsley, perhaps, she was reasonably sure that was an herb- into little more than a pile of little green bits.

She leaned forward, sniffing it, curious at the smell. It smelled a little like lemons, a little bit like grass, and a little bit like sunshine. "That smells good."

Eliot raised an eyebrow as he scooped up the pile using his knife and dumped it all into a small bowl. "I should hope so. I bought it this morning at a farmer's marker. It's about as fresh as it can be without picking it myself."

Ah, that explained why Eliot had rolled his eyes when he said he was going out shopping and Parker had asked for some chips. "Would you pick it yourself?"

Eliot frowned a little. "Well, yeah. If I had the time to keep an eye on a small garden, I'd definitely put herbs in it and pick what I could. Fresh, homemade food is the best. Since we keep an odd schedule, I can't reliably take care of plants, though." Eliot shrugged. "The farmer's market is the next best thing. Plus, I've done a favor or two a couple of the owners, and they give me a discount, so it's worth the half hour trek to get there."

"Are the shrimp from there?"

"No. They're from a shop around the corner from the farmer's market that does really good seafood. Here." He thrust a few lemons that no longer had any skins at her, then thought for a second, pulled them back towards himself and sliced them in half, and then gave them back to her, ducking away and muttering under his breath. "Where did I put...ah!" he exclaimed in victory, pulling out a plastic bowl with a conical device attached to the top. "Squeeze those, please?"

Parker wasn't quite sure how her interest in what was being cooked for dinner had turned into being recruited to help cook said dinner, but even she'd seen lemons being squeezed before. She used her injured arm to keep the bowl from moving, and used her good arm to exert the appropriate amount of pressure on the lemon halves to squeeze out all of their juice. When she'd collected about half a cup's worth, Eliot, who had been flipping over the shrimp diligently to cook the other side had pulled a bottle of white wine out of the cupboard and handed it to her, sparing her barely a glace. "Can you put a quarter of a cup of white wine in there? It should be up to the line that says three-fourths, and then bring that over here."

Parker obediently followed his instructions, carefully pouring the white wine in, diligently examining the line every moment she did so to ensure that it would end up exactly at the three-quarters line.

There was heat next to her suddenly, a warmth that was unmistakable. A broad hand rested itself on her waist, careful despite the fact that almost all of the bruising had completely disappeared, and he crouched down next to her. With a little laughter in his voice, Eliot said, "You know, it doesn't have to be exact. This isn't like baking. If you go a little over the line or stop a little short, it won't really matter, so long as you've got it about right." His breath was warm against her skin, and the sizzle of the pan and the smell of garlic faded out as she concentrated on the two points of heat- his hand and his face besides hers. He gently took the bottle of wine from her hand and picked up the lemon juice/white wine mix and took it over to the pan of shrimp, pouring it in.

Parker watched him move sinuously through the kitchen, as much in his element now as he was when dodging a fist.

She watched him, eyes half-lidded, wondering if he knew that he carried himself with just as much grace now. When he moved, there were no wasted movements- he never forgot where he set down, for example, the sieve that he used to drain the linguini noodles before adding them to the pan with the shrimp. It was all effortless, too, for as he did this all he carried on a perfectly coherent conversation. At least, Parker assumed it was coherent, because she couldn't remember a single word of it, had no idea what was coming out of her mouth. They could have been talking about chinchilla's for all she knew.

Eventually, he herded her to the set table with the shrimp linguini on a large plate, parsley sprinkled on top, giving a flash of green to the otherwise boring color palette. From a back pan that Parker hadn't seen, Eliot scooped out some green beans to accompany the shrimp linguini.

As usual, Eliot served her first, putting the plate in front of her before dishing some out for himself. The dim vestiges of memory that lurked deep in her mind reminded her that it was more polite to wait for the other person to be served before eating, and for once she listened.

"Are you waiting for something?" Eliot asked, fork in one hand and curious expression on his face.

Parker's face burned. "Uh, no, not exactly. I just, um, thought it would be polite." The words escaped her even though she knew it had been a stupid impulse.

Eliot looked confounded for a moment, but the part of Parker that constantly whispered about how idiotic she was, because of course, it had looked like she hadn't wanted to eat the food set in front of her, was foiled neatly when Eliot just grinned, laughing a little. "Believe me, standing on ceremony for a meal is the last thing you need to worry about, Parker." He looked about to say more, but he just shook his head. "Go on," he urged, gesturing at her plate.

She ducked her head, scooping up some of the noodles and winding them around her fork, feeling strangely clumsy and graceless after watching Eliot move so smoothly in the kitchen just moments ago. She took a bite, and closed her eyes in appreciation, tasting lemons and garlic and seafood and onions and parsley and something a touch spicy that left her mouth tingling. She was hardly a food critic, but even she could tell that this was very, very good. She blinked in surprise, chewing slowly and swallowing.

A thought struck her. She'd helped make this, in a small way. She'd squeezed the lemons and added the white wine, hadn't she? She gazed down at her plate with a whole new appreciation, joy swelling in her chest.

Eliot's eyes were still laughing at her when she finally looked up, but it wasn't a cruel laughter, so she let it pass. "Good?" he asked, attempting to keep a straight face.

"Yes." That, at least she could do- make it clear that this was on the list of Parker Approved Foods.

The corners of Eliot's eyes crinkled with the force of his suppressed laughter, and his voice wavered a little as he said, "I promise I'll make it for you again sometime."

"Can I help then too?" she asked, hopeful. Maybe there was something to this cooking thing after all.

Eliot tilted his head, eyebrow raised. "I don't see why not," he said. "If you'd like to, I'm hardly going to say no."

"I want to help," she told him emphatically. "I liked helping."

Eliot cocked his head, eyebrow rising even further, considering her. Parker met his gaze, instinctually understanding that she was undergoing some sort of test, and terrified of failing it. Then Eliot relaxed, slouching a little in his chair and Parker let out a breath of relief, feeling her hammering pulse slow once that intense regard had lessened. "In that case..." he paused dramatically, and the laughter was back in his eyes, and Parker couldn't stop staring at the way the laugh lines framed his eyes. "We're going to have to get you an apron."


	6. Chapter 6

She was in the room with the window seat when she felt nauseous for the first time, heart beating faster, bile rising in her throat, breath catching. She'd fallen forward, tripping over her own feet in a rare moment of sheer clumsiness, pitching forward towards the window. As she did so, she caught sight of all of the people walking below her, wandering the streets casually on the lovely Sunday afternoon. The view made her nauseous almost instantly. She steadied herself, shutting her eyes, and swallowed a couple of times, practically throwing herself off the window seat and staggering out of the room, hand to her forehead. She hoped desperately that she wasn't getting sick. That was the last thing she needed right now. She'd only just been given permission the last week or two to get off the couch and start moving again in the first place. The last thing she wanted was to be tied to that couch again. If necessary, she'd set it on fire to prevent it.

Eliot heard her and came out of the main room, paper towel in one hand and Windex in the other. "Parker?" he asked uncertainly, taking in her wan complexion and the way she was sagged against the wall. "Are you alright?"

The nausea was fading, her heart slowing, but a headache was starting to pound at her temples. "Not feeling so good," she muttered, curled in around herself. Eliot calmly set his cleaning supplies to the side and helped her back to her room, hands gentle as he led her in the right direction. Within a minute, Eliot was pulling her covers up around her shoulders and tucking her in neatly, having stripped her of her pants she'd been wearing so she was more comfortable. The sheets felt good against her skin, but the nausea surged again as she thought about how close she'd coming to hitting the window. A cool hand touched the heat in her face, distracting her from her thoughts, and she leaned into the gesture. After a second or two, the hands moved away.

"I'll be right back," he informed her in a low voice, presumably to keep her from feeling any worse. As he left, he turned the large overhead light off, leaving the windows open to let in a little light.

She let out a little exhale as he left, wondering how she'd felt so ill so quickly. Even stranger was the way her sickness was already starting to fade, head clearing. Maybe she'd just gotten a head-rush and overreacted. She was sitting up, ready to make that very claim, when Eliot came back in with a glass of water and a bottle of what looked like ibuprofen. "You don't have a fever, but I'd like you to take two of these to help with your headache."

"But I'm fine," Parker argued. Eliot placed a hand on her shoulder and easily kept her down.

"Oh yes, you look fine. That pasty white color is really working for you," he informed her dryly, handing her the water and pills. She debated the merits of fighting Eliot off by virtue of using her cast to bludgeon him, because she was fine, really, she'd just gotten really dizzy when she'd fallen, but Eliot dared her to try it. "Were you feeling sick this morning?"

"No. I just felt really sick a couple of minutes ago when I fell. I almost tripped into the window. That's it. It was probably just a head-rush or something, Eliot. It's not a big deal," she pleaded, but Eliot was unmoved.

"You're going to lay in here and rest until dinner," he informed her sharply, giving her no wiggle room. "That means no computer, no movies, no nothing. I want you to actually rest- close your eyes, if at all possible, and try to take a nap." He looked worried, more worried than he should at the admission that she'd tripped. He took the empty water glass from her, and in a hesitant voice, asked, "You didn't feel nauseous until you looked out the window when you fell?" Eliot asked.

Parker frowned up at him, wondering what on Earth Eliot could possibly be getting at. "Yes," she agreed.

Eliot looked more apprehensive at that, not less. "Alright. Um, just close your eyes for a while. I'll come get you when dinner's ready."

Parker wanted to protest but Eliot gave her another one of his patented Looks and she closed her mouth obediently. If she got on his good side now, he'd be more likely to listen when she told him that she was fine later.

Eliot closed the blinds and then stepped out of the room, leaving it dim. He shut the door behind him softly, a bare click that nevertheless sounded like the door of a jail cell shutting.

~*~

"Hey, I'm going for a quick jog- do you want to come with me?" Eliot asked a few days later after breakfast. He held his breath, waiting for Parker to respond. It would be easiest to test his theory if she agreed to the jog of her own free will in the first place.

There was a moment of silence before Parker shrugged. "Sure," she said lazily, uncaring. "I'd just have to get changed."

"That's fine," Eliot agreed, hoping that his relief didn't show. "I'll give you fifteen minutes while I finish up with these dishes."

"Alright," Parker agreed easily, handing him her dishes from breakfast and rising from the table. She ran her hands through her hair, frowning when she encountered a few knots. She tugged at them with her fingers, and Eliot admired the figure she cut in the clinging pajamas she wore. She worked the knot free, and left the kitchen, leaving Eliot staring after her, breath coming a little quicker than normal. He turned back quickly and finished up the dishes, trying not to think too closely about exactly what he was doing.

He was putting his own shoes on when Parker came back out, dressed for running with her hair up in a high ponytail. "Ready when you are!" she said cheerfully, brushing her bangs out of her face. "Where are you planning on running?"

"I figured I'd run along the Charles, mostly. There are some good bridges and hills in the area. Do you mind taking the T over? It's going to be impossible to find parking on a Saturday morning in any reasonable location, and I refuse to drive around for half an hour trying to find a parking spot."

Parker shrugged her agreement. "I just need to grab my Charlie card, then." As she did that, Eliot assembled water bottles for them and stuck them both one of the bags that he could pull shut. Inside he also put twenty bucks just in case and his own Charlie card. "Can I stick mine in there too?" Parker asked as she came back. Eliot gestured for her to go ahead, and Parker slipped it in. "I think mine should be fine. I haven't used it in forever, though." She made a face.

Eliot, however, was impatient to get going for more than one reason, and led the way, hopping the T over to Cambridge and immediately setting a reasonable pace considering Parker had spent the last five weeks or so not really taxing herself. Parker kept up reasonably well regardless, and the first mile was relatively easy. Then they hit the first bridge.

Parker, for as long as Eliot had known her, had always taken the outside of the bridge during their occasional runs, once going so far to ask if the police would come if she decided to run atop the railing. Even Eliot, who normally didn't have any major qualms with height had blanched at that. Then again, that was Parker- always pushing the limits just because she could. He was reasonably sure that she genuinely hadn't seen anything wrong with the request; it was clear she believed she could do it easily. Of course, Eliot had believed it as well, but he'd been quick to remind her that no, the police wouldn't take very kindly to someone running along the railing, and since he didn't feel like bailing her out of jail, it would be best for everyone if she kept to the cement.

But now Parker fluidly, effortlessly changed so that she was running on the inside, as far from the edge from of the bridge as she could get and not be in traffic.

That was not Parker, not really.

Eliot stared straight ahead of him until the stinging in his eyes passed.

~*~

All day his courage failed him. Every time he would think to himself, _This is it, this time I will bring it up with her, I've got to talk about this with her_ , he opened his mouth and nothing at all would come out, vocal cords paralyzed by indecision. What the hell was he supposed to say, really? Where to even begin?

How was he supposed to ask someone who falls for a living if they're afraid of heights? And furthermore, what if he was wrong? What if he was just reading too much into it?

If he was right, he wouldn't be surprised by it, not really, because anyone would be terrified of falling after surviving a fall into a drug filled warehouse when there were twelve men outside ready to shoot anything that even looked at them funny. He understood it- he really did. It was only natural to be frightened.

Parker had been honing the art of thieving since she was ten or eleven, if what little information Eliot had gleaned of the past few years was correct. And in all that time, she'd never fallen when it really mattered, never fallen and had to rely on someone else completely in order to get out of the situation alive. Her fear- if she really had one- was more than reasonable. In another person, he'd have been watching for it more closely, ready to pounce on it the minute they showed signed of being affected by it.

But this...this was Parker. Parker ate crazy cheerios for breakfast. She'd always been something a little larger than life, wild and unexpected. Not precisely more or less human, just an unquantifiable element that Eliot was not capable of describing as anything other than 'mildly insane'. For Parker to be scared made the bottom drop out of Eliot's world, because Parker was scared of normal things, like saying, "Hi," to people when they greet you on the street or talking about things that she wasn't really interested in, not of the things that everyone else was afraid of, like heights.

God, he really hoped that he was wrong, really, really hoped that he was wrong.

He continued to pace, hardly noticing when Parker slipped off to bed. He'd run his hands through his hair so many times it was standing on end, as though he'd rubbed a balloon against his hair. His lips were red from him biting them, and despite the fact that he'd had a full night's sleep, he looked like he could used another twelve hours in bed. He snorted in laughter. Parker tended to have that effect on people, though this wasn't usually how she did it.

He rubbed his hands over his face, struggling to find some way of broaching the topic- he didn't want to risk driving Parker away because he'd attacked too directly. He knew it was an irrational fear to believe that Nate would kick Parker off the team because she couldn't do her job- Nate had, after specified them all as being a part of his family and there was nothing, _nothing_ that was more important to him- but there was that little thought in the back of his mind that whispered the possibility was there all the same. It was a voice that he couldn't quite managed to squash, despite his best efforts.

A low stirring of panic began in his breast, and he rested a hand over his heart, feeling the quick tempo through the loose t-shirt he wore with ease.

With a certain sick dread overcoming him, Eliot thought, _I am in_ so _over my head._

Parker cried out.

Eliot sprinted to her room, nearly toppling head over heels as he took a turn a little too sharply, banging into the opposite wall as a result of his hurry. He darted into Parker's room, just in time to catch a sharp inhale as Parker rolled over, curling herself in a tight ball. Eliot paused at the edge of the bed, torn between trying to ease her way back to sleep and waking her up. He smoothed a hand over Parker's brow in the interim, humming a little under his breath in what he hoped was a soothing way, and almost immediately Parker relaxed, turning slightly into the hand as her breathing slowed, the nightmare almost visibly falling away. Eliot hesitated, unsure if his decision had just been made for him, but she didn't stir, face still slack from sleep, face looking far too young. It didn't appear as though she was going to wake up anytime soon, and he sighed a little in relief and more than a little surprise. Usually Parker was a light sleeper, as light as him, and he wasn't sure what to make of the fact that she hadn't woken up by his running through the apartment or his skin against hers. Either way, if he didn't have to wake her up, he would be pleased because he was loathe to do so, not only because Parker needed the sleep- she seemed to think that she had him fooled about the strange hours she kept, but Eliot was not that dense, despite popular opinion- but because he _still_ didn't know what he was supposed to say to her.

Feeling very much like he was taking the coward's way out, Eliot smoothed his hand over Parker's brow again, entranced by the sensation of her soft skin against his callused hands. He continued humming the lullaby that his mother had sung to him as a child under his breath, hoping that would keep Parker asleep through the night. She made a little chuffing sound that really was unbearably sweet, leaning into his palm.

God, she looked beautiful like this, the light from the hallways just barely illuminating his features- she was beautiful always, whether she was teasing him or coaxing him into doing something crazy with her or waiting anxiously for him to finish cooking because she was starving.

 _Oh_ , he thought, helpless. _Oh._

His heart was thrumming, blood racing through his veins as he leaned down and very carefully pressed the lightest kiss he could manage to her forehead.

She stirred then, a soft, rough, "Eliot?" slipping out and Eliot knew this was a measure of her trust, that she didn't awaken fully, trusting him and this place, knowing that she'd come to no harm here.

Eliot stilled at Parker's voice and he backed out as quickly and quietly as he could manage, shutting the door behind him.

He leaned against the door, eyes tightly closed, pressing a hand to his mouth, remembering the taste of her skin as he came to the conclusion that somewhere around the way, he'd fallen in love with Parker.

~*~

Parker woke the next morning with her head too full. It felt like she hadn't just been asleep for a good seven hours, but rather had gone a day or two without sleep. Half-formed memories of her dreams- her nightmares really- overwhelmed her. Every near miss she'd had for the last decade, from catching herself on an awning in Italy to just a few months ago when their mark had attempted to cut through her rappelling cables. Before Eliot had taken him out. In every single dream, she'd plummeted, only to cut to the next near miss before she ever hit the ground.

Over and over she'd been forced to relieve the sick feeling of falling without control, heart in her throat, nausea threatening to overwhelm her as time and again she was dropped to her death.

Eliot was already nursing a cup of coffee, looking as exhausted as she felt. He was so involved in his own musing that he barely looked up as she came into the kitchen, pouring her own cup of coffee and adding creamer and sugar before sitting across from him at the small table, fingers wrapped around the mug, eyes half closed as she inhaled the scent of the fresh brew.

Parker had only a few moments of silence before Eliot looked up, blue gaze piercing and clear, as though he'd finally made a decision after hours of agonizing, the sudden intensity making Parker edge back out of reflex. It was the look Eliot always got before he took someone out, going in for the kill and decimating his opponent.

"Eliot?" she asked nervously, unwilling to draw too much attention to herself, but equally curious as to the cause of the sudden, certain intent.

Too late- Eliot pinned her with his gaze, and Parker wondered in the back of her mind if this was how zebras felt just before having their throats torn out by a lion.

It was a rather unpleasant feeling.

"Is there anything you'd like to say to me?" Eliot asked, probing, eyes narrowed. Though his gaze remained clear, there was an apology lurking in the back of his eyes, and Parker knew instantly, though she didn't know how, that this was the last possible thing that Eliot wanted to have asked.

Confused, Parker answered blankly, "Sorry?" She didn't know what she had done that needed to be apologized for- she didn't even know if that's what Eliot was looking for, to be honest- but it was her best guess. She ran through the events of the last few days, searching frantically for something that may have set Eliot off. She found nothing, but perhaps this was one of those things that Sophie called "translational issues". Sometimes the things she did make people react oddly, even though they were perfectly natural things to say, as far as she was concerned.

Eliot shook his head once, pulling his hands away from his coffee and fisting them by his sides. Parker's hackles rose and she tensed, flight-or-fight instincts clamoring for her to run as far as she could as fast as she could. She tensed in her chair, keeping one eye on Eliot's center of gravity and one eye on his hands. Eliot was fast, faster than she was certainly, and if Parker wasn't careful, he'd have a good grip on her before she even realized what was happening, and that would be very, very dangerous indeed.

A sigh, heavy and sad, came from the man across from her, but Parker didn't move. For all she knew, it was some sort of trick to get her to look away from his hands and torso, which she was not going to do under any circumstances. Another sigh, this one more mournful than anything else, and Eliot very carefully relaxed his hands, sitting them on top of the table, scooting a little across from Parker so that the table was between them; the half a second it would take him to get around the table would be enough for Parker to react and move. Eliot knew Parker's instincts better than the woman herself probably knew them, and sure enough, Parker relaxed fractionally when Eliot purposefully relaxed his aggressive stance. They wouldn't get anywhere if Parker was on edge, expecting to be attacked at any moment.

Parker met Eliot's gaze carefully, no longer edging away from the hitter but unwilling to come any closer. "What did I do?" she asked, and there was something fearful encroaching into her tone.

That broke the last bit of irrational anger Eliot had at the situation, and he let his head drop from a moment, taking in a few deep breaths in an effort to center himself for the coming situation, wishing desperately that he didn't have to do this. He hated Parker for making him do this, for making him care about her enough to worry like this. It wasn't _fair_.

Sophie's cultured, elegant tones rang in his head for just a moment, catching Eliot by surprise. _All's fair in love and war_ , the mental-Sophie quoted gleefully, and Eliot could just imagine her expression. It seemed that Parker was not the only one who'd slipped beneath his skin and made a home there. But this wasn't the time to be distracted, and Eliot attempted to find his tongue once more, courage faltering.

"You...didn't do anything," Eliot finally said in heavy tones. The words came out reluctantly, and he mentally winced, knowing that he probably hadn't inspired a ton of confidence in Parker that his anger was not her fault, not really.

Sure enough, Parker's brows snapped together. "I didn't do anything? Then what's the matter?" she demanded, anger overcoming her initial confusion and worry. "You can't...don't do that to me!" she continued, frustration creeping in. When Eliot didn't respond, Parker reached out, and grabbed Eliot's hand, the need to figure out what had upset Eliot so deeply overwhelming her fear. "Eliot, what is it?"

There was the apology in Eliot's eyes again, stronger now, and Parker felt a rare sense of foreboding. Eliot never asked for forgiveness, just blustered and mocked and was subtly good, subtly kind and that more than made up for it.

 _Oh God,_ Parker thought, eyes going wide, _Eliot..._

"Parker...why didn't you tell me that you're afraid of heights?"

Of all the things Parker thought Eliot might say, that was not even close to being on the list. It wasn't even on the list of the things that couldn't possibly be on the list. It was so far down on the list of possible statements period that those words hadn't even registered. Her mouth worked for a moment or two, but no words came out; she literally had no idea as to how she was supposed to respond to such a ridiculous comment. Had Eliot _lost_ his _mind_?

Hesitating, knowing she sounded as though she were explaining basic facts to a very young and not very bright child, Parker said, "Eliot. I jump off of buildings for a living. You've _seen_ me do it. You call me crazy because of just how much I like to do it." Parker wondered how someone so clever could go so badly awry. "How could you _possibly_ think that I'm afraid of heights?"

"I..." Eliot floundered for a moment. This was not his area of expertise, not in the least, and he wasn't sure how to phrase what he needed to say. "You're not...I don't think you're afraid of heights, not normally, but recently- since you fell, I mean, only since you fell, on our last con, you haven't...you're not your usual self, is what I mean." He could feel a dull blush encroaching, color blooming in his cheeks, a mix of mortification and awkwardness that made his tongue feel clumsier than normal, and he wondered if he was even making any sense. "It's okay, I mean, it's not anything to be ashamed of, because...it's not- I mean, you're not...umm, it's not a big deal. You can get over it," he finished earnestly, and thought, _God, yeah, I'm definitely in way over my head_.

"Eliot, I'm not afraid of heights," Parker repeated, mouth tightening. Why couldn't he understand that? Why did he keep insisting that she was afraid? She hadn't been afraid since the first time Archie had pushed her over the edge, her own screams ringing in her ears until she'd seen the way the world tilted and whirled around her. "Falling's just a job risk. I've fallen before. It happens, you know," she told him, and that was definitely condescension lining her words. "I'm fine."

It was that condescension that made Eliot's anger rise to the front of his mind. "I'm not an idiot, you know," he snapped, biting out the words, and with his anger came a rare sort of eloquence. "And you've never fallen when you weren't expecting it, during a job when it counts. People are paid very well to make sure that security is top notch when people might be trying to steal diamonds, or patents, or plans. You don't have to worry about a window breaking, or a railing giving out because those would be security risks. What we're doing now isn't like what you used to do. Surely you understand that," he coaxed, hoping that he'd managed to get through to Parker against all odds.

Parker's face only creased, growing furious, and Eliot found himself matching her fury, a horrific cycle that he knew now wasn't going to end well but that he was helpless to stop.

"Why do you keep insisting that I'm afraid?" Parker hissed, ire making the words into barbs meant to wound. "I know how to be hurt, Eliot. You're not the only one whose job leaves bruises! Stop making it sound like you're the only one who can take a hit! I can do it too!" She didn't care if she sounded petulant- Eliot was wrong, and he needed to see it.

"That wasn't what I was saying!" Eliot yelled back, standing; the chair clattered over behind him, and he slammed his hands on the table to keep from grabbing Parker's arms and shaking her until she listened to reason. "Did I ever say that you don't know how to deal with being injured?"

Parker flinched at the sound of the chair being knocked over, but she just hunched her shoulders, ready to battle until the bitter end if that's what it took. Normally she tried to restrain her anger, tried to send it to her special place, tried to keep it from being used as a weapon against her as it had all too often, but Eliot's words had struck a nerve, and as wary as she was of his anger, her own drove her to fight back, using every underhanded tactic she knew. "You...you implied it!" She accused, pointing a finger at Eliot, losing more and more control. "At least I don't hurt people, like you do!" she finally shouted, unable to think of another suitable insult. "I'm not...not good," she struggled to get the words out past a lump her in her throat, but she managed it, anger fortifying her. "I'm not good, but at least my job isn't to hurt people!" She tilted her head, victorious at her repartee. The dark smirk that grew on her lips was something entirely foreign, something that Eliot had never seen on Parker's face. This wasn't Parker, wasn't _his_ Parker, this woman who threw barbed insults where she knew they would stick simply because Eliot had said something she didn't like. And they _did_ stick, and he was forced to wonder when he'd started to be relaxed enough around Parker, had let her in enough that she knew that he did hate the fact that sometimes it was his job to hurt people who were just trying to make a living from day to day. They were usually hardly innocent, but some of them were just trying to make a dollar, trying to make things a little a little better for their families, especially in the war torn nations he'd been in.

Eliot went hot and then cold, so furious for a moment with Parker and her inability to listen to reason, her inability to talk things out like a normal adult, her inability to be sensible, that the anger knotted itself under his breastbone, leaving the rest of him ready and able to do battle. "What about you, then?" he taunted, letting his hands fist on the table and uncaring of the guilt that made it hard to swallow. He hadn't started this argument, but he was going to finish it come hell or high water. "Yeah, I might break a few arms in my job, but yours- well. You just need someone who's bat shit insane," Eliot drawled, keeping the choking fury out of his throat by nothing more than iron will, heart aching with the force of Parker's words. He'd pay her back for that tenfold. "I wonder when they'll finally decide that you're too much of a risk to keep around. Surely there's only so long they'll be willing to put up with your...eccentricities." Eliot put just the right amount of emphasis on 'eccentricities' so as to leave Parker with no doubt as to what he was referring.

Parker was nearly sick with the impact of Eliot's words, nearly curled in on herself- but no, that was a sign of weakness that she could ill afford at this moment, a sign of weakness that would mean her death as much as if Eliot cut open her wrists with a knife. His words had played off of her every waking nightmare, that one day Nate and Sophie and Hardison and Eliot- oh god, _Eliot_ \- would realize that she was even more broken than they knew and realize that she put them in constant jeopardy. She _hated_ Eliot in that moment, absolutely _loathed_ him for voicing her fears, even knowing that she'd treated him no better, horrified by the realization that she'd let her anger rule her and she'd spewed things from the Not Fine portion of her brain.

 _But he deserved it,_ a part of her argued, _he deserved it for daring to make it sound like you're scared of falling now, for making it seem like the one thing on which you can always rely has been lost to you._ She couldn't think anymore, couldn't manage to scrape her thoughts into something truly coherent. She clung to that one thought. That was the only way out of this- she had to convince Eliot that he was _wrong_ , that she wasn't afraid. That was the only way to end this.

Parker's eyes blazed in an ashy face, and Eliot was sickly satisfied that Parker was now hurting as badly as he was. He'd only been trying to help- it was Parker who'd blown everything out of proportion.

Parker's eyes blinked with unshed tears, and Eliot swallowed.

"Fine," Parker snarled, voice a growl. "I'll prove to you that I'm not afraid, that you're just an idiot for thinking it was even possible in the first place. I'll go up to the roof, right now, and show you exactly how unafraid I am, show you." Her smile was all teeth, dangerous and wicked. "And then, I'll tell Nate. Is that what you want?" A challenge, then, a gauntlet thrown.

The threat, added a strange levity to the situation. If he was wrong- if he really was wrong, he'd be more than happy to apologize, to admit that he'd lost his mind- anything, really, if it meant that he'd just been mistaken. If Parker was right, he'd be more than happy to admit everything he was thinking to Nate and beg Parker's forgiveness.

Anything, if it meant that Eliot was wrong.

"Yes," Eliot breathed quietly, a dreadful curl of apprehension creeping through his system, making it hard to catch his breath. "Yes, that's what I want."

Parker's face blazed with victory, but the ashy tone to her skin hadn't disappeared, and Eliot wondered, for a moment, if he'd just broken everything that had been building between them.

Then he felt the echoes of pain down his spine, as though Parker had physically assaulted him- but wouldn't that have been easier to bear, than the words she'd thrown at him when he'd never had the chance to garner a proper defense?

It seemed that there could be no good ending to all this.

They trekked up to the roof in a tense silence, careful to prevent their bodies from touching, because even cloth-on-cloth contact would be too much, far too much. Eliot's apartment building wasn't very tall, wasn't particularly fancy; the rooftop was only a couple of stories up, a utilitarian sort of environment with waist-high railing around the edge to keep the apartment from getting sued as a result of a suicide, as though a railing could stop someone really determined.

Parker opened the door after disarming the alarm with a sort of casualness that indicated habit. Eliot strode out onto the roof behind her, following her as she headed directly towards the nearest bit of railing. "So what exactly will convince you that I'm not afraid," Parker challenged, turning to face Eliot. She was careful to remain out of Eliot's lunge reach should he decide to grab her. Her uninjured hand was fisted against one hip, expression tight and drawn.

Eliot almost relented at the sight, but remembered he was doing this for her own good. "Sit on the railing. It's low enough that you shouldn't need both hands to get over it. Sit on the railing for ten seconds without..." he searched his mind for an appropriate polite term, but then decided cruelty might serve better for this task, "freaking out."

Parker made a face that stated quite clearly that she was only doing this to humor Eliot and prove him so wrong he never spoke about this subject again. She made her way to the railing with easy assurance, and Eliot began to wonder if he was wrong, if he really was, when-

Parker had been confident that she'd pass Eliot's ridiculous test. She'd jumped off buildings before- what was a little balancing act on a bit of railing? She swung herself up on the railing, hand keeping her neatly balanced as she seated herself on the edge and looked down.

Her heart stopped.

It was perhaps, five or six stories, but it might as well have been a mile for all that she was able to control her gasp of dismay and terror. She found her balance slipping, her nausea increasing, tears coming unbidden to her eyes as she gazed down below her and allowed fright to strike at her heart, crippling her reflexes even as she began sliding off the railing, palm sweaty, completely unable to control herself-

Eliot yanked her back.

Eliot saved her life.

"No," she whispered, a pitiful little mewl of sound that was less a word and more a verbalization of emotion. "It's not fair."

She clawed against Eliot's grip, crushed, hand covering her face, grateful for the way her hair shielded her features from view as she struggled and mostly failed to come to terms with what had just been revealed. Eliot released her, a little hiss of pain the only sound to indicate that she'd done anything to him. Parker backed away from him, face still shielded, fury growing, swamping her. Nothing was safe anymore, if flying could be taken from her. She could feel her entire body shaking, shuddering, and she couldn't do a damn thing to control it.

"This is all your fault," she murmured, and her voice cracked in the middle of the words, and she barely bit down a scream of frustration at that

Eliot reached out a hand, coaxing. "Parker, it's okay-"

"It's not okay," she bit out, looking up at Eliot. He froze at the expression on her face, but Parker was beyond caring. "You took it from me, you took-" she bit her lip, drawing a bead of blood that slipped over her lip and down her chin. Her mouth worked a little.

"Parker?" Eliot asked uncertainly, keeping his distance.

Her mouth worked again, a litany that gained force. "Hate you, I hate you, I hate you, _I hate you, I HATE YOU_!" She screamed.

Eliot had been unprepared for the words, for the darkness and despair in Parker's eyes- he'd thought her earlier words had been a wound. If so, this was a mortal blow. "Parker," he murmured again, voice broken.

Parker looked like she might say something else, then shook her head, hair falling over to cover her face.

She ran, then, sprinting off for the open door.

Eliot cursed himself as he raced after her. He might have been stronger than Parker, might have been able to hold her if he got a hand on her, but Parker always had been and always would be faster than him. She hurled herself down the stairs with no worry as to what might happen if she slipped, leaving Eliot to catch his breath at every sharp turn, every near-fall that somehow just turned to more and more speed.

Parker threw herself out of the building, immediately heading for a crowd and losing herself within its mass, disappearing. Eliot stopped on the corner of his street, eyes desperately searching for some sign of Parker, but there was nothing to be seen.

She'd vanished.


	7. Chapter 7

It had started to rain, of course.

Parker didn't particularly care about that, however, as she slogged through the rain in her jeans and t-shirt. It was a fairly mild day, so she hadn't been truly cold at first, but she'd been out in the rain for nearly half an hour now, and she was starting to become thoroughly chilled. She was already soaked down to her bra and underwear, and was starting to despair of what to do next when she realized she knew where she was. She knew exactly where she was- four blocks from Sophie's apartment. She wondered if her feet had been leading her here the entire time, and then decided that it didn't matter. Surely Sophie would take her in, would put that gentle hand on her shoulder that said all sorts of things the two women were normally comfortable with leaving wholly unsaid.

When she knocked on Sophie's door, dripping wet and shivering and feeling a suspicious lump in her throat every time she swallowed, Parker hoped that Sophie wasn't out despite the fact that despite the rain, it was an otherwise normal Wednesday afternoon, to all appearances no different from any other Wednesday.

"Coming!" called Sophie from somewhere behind the door, and Parker let out a low sigh of relief, breath starting to hitch as she sniffled, wiping at her nose ineffectually with her soaked sleeve. The door swung open, and Parker felt a stab of acute envy go right through her. Sophie, as she opened the door, looked as beautifully coifed as ever, and was in the process of putting elegant sapphire and pearl drops in her ear, a billow of gentle scent filling the air around her with something clean and refreshing. Parker mentally compared it to her own soaked state, injured arm held close to her body, dripping onto the wood floors, and found herself sadly wanting.

"Can I come in?" Parker rasped.

Sophie's eyes had widened when she'd seen exactly what state Parker was in, and she nodded, mouth falling open. "Let me get you a couple of towels," she said as she stepped back, letting Parker into her flat. "You look like you need to dry off."

Parker tried to smile at that, tried to laugh like she knew she was supposed to, but the chuckle sounded strangled at best. She let out a little hiccup of sound, eyes blinking rapidly to try and stop the burning- and then the dampness on her face wasn't due entirely to the rain.

"Oh, Parker," Sophie said mournfully, pulling the other woman inside. She sat Parker down on her couch, wrapping the woman in a blanket, heedless of the damage the water might do to either item. This was far more important. When Parker was seated, Sophie wrapped her arms around the thief and let her sob into Sophie's blouse, rubbing one hand soothingly along Parker's back while the other brushing away the wet strands of hair from her eyes. She made little noises of reassurance, gently rocking Parker back and forth as she would a child instead of pressing for details. Details could wait- this could not.

There came a point, however, when Parker was completely cried out, and Sophie let her rest for a couple of minutes, gradually slowing her movements until Parker lay boneless against Sophie's chest, exhausted. "You'll feel better if you warm up," Sophie murmured into Parker's hair, which was starting to curl in the warmth of the room. "I think a shower is in order. Come on, love, follow me." She helped Parker up, blanket and all, and helped her over to the apartment's spacious bathroom.

She stripped off the blanket, and helped Parker out of her jeans and shirt. The cast had been soaked as well, and was probably ruined, but Sophie departed briefly to get a plastic bag to cover it anyways, in case it could be salvaged.

She turned on the water, making sure it was nice and hot for Parker before leaving the thief to strip out of her bra and underwear. "I'll get you some sweats and a t-shirt," Sophie said, as Parker stepped into the shower, pulling the curtain close behind her. She got a non-committal grunt for her effort, but Sophie didn't take offense. She was just glad that Parker had acknowledged her in the first place.

Parker sighed a little in relief when Sophie left, lingering under the warm spray, tilting her fact up into it and letting it restore feeling to her extremities. She curled and uncurled her fingers and toes, standing beneath the water until her fingers started to get pruney before even considering washing her hair or her body. It was easier to let her entire world narrow down to the water slipping down her body, to the way the heat bled into her system and almost distracted her from the second, silent hot flow of tears that was welling up in her. When they slowed to a stop as well, Parker closed her eyes and let the water ease away the puffy sting, wallowing in the warmth.

Even Parker couldn't stay under in the shower forever, though, and eventually she stepped out into a room full of cloying steam that made everything stick to her unpleasantly. She cracked the door to let some cool air in, letting the draft help dry her body before beginning the slow and arduous process of getting dressed in Sophie's borrowed clothing. She took her time, even knowing that she was putting off the moment when she had to explain things to Sophie for as long as possible. Sick dread curled in her stomach as she imagined the possible responses Sophie might have when Parker revealed exactly what had driven her out of Eliot's apartment. At the thought, she found herself blinking away more tears when she'd thought herself cried completely dry. She stared at her form in the mirror for a long moment before opening the door, debating the possibility of escaping before Sophie could catch her.

"Don't even think about it," Sophie said as she rounded the corner, and Parker watched her warily. Sophie was often scarily intuitive, but rarely did even Sophie have so close a brush with mind-reading.

Parker allowed herself to be lead back to the couch where she'd been seated earlier, and Parker sat on the recliner, while Sophie took the non-wet end of the couch. They didn't address the towels sopping up what water they could on the other end from where Sophie was sitting, but it was a little hard to miss.

"Oh, just a moment," Sophie said in pause, disappearing into the kitchen. "Tea for me, hot chocolate for you. We're going to need it." She handed the mug to Parker, who looked away shyly as she accepted the cup. "Now, tell me what all this is about."

So Parker did.

She got the feeling that she wasn't being very coherent, and that if Sophie was able to assemble something about the mashed up timings and quotes and explanations, then she was far better at language than Parker could ever hope to be. Then again, Parker already knew that Sophie was leagues better than her at this, so perhaps she should just have faith that Sophie would manage to piece something together that made at least a remote kind of sense. Sophie made encouraging noises when Parker faltered, and asked a few questions, but mostly she just sipped at her tea while Parker alternately told her story to the depths of her hot chocolate and an invisible but apparently fascinating point just over Sophie's left shoulder.

When she'd explained everything, or at least hoped she had, Sophie nodded once, absently, and nursed her tea for longer than Parker thought she'd be able to stand. She was desperate for some sort of response, limbs trembling with the idea that Sophie might shun her for what she'd said, what she'd done- not only during that last argument with Eliot, but before then. She tortured herself with Sophie's silence, waiting for the judgment to fall.

"First off," Sophie said slowly, tasting the feel of each word before letting it leave her mouth. "No matter what, you're still family. Short of going out and throwing Eliot off a cliff, you will _always_ be family."

Parker exhaled, long and slow and shaky with relief, Sophie's words quelling doubts that hadn't even been fully realized. She brought what was left of the hot chocolate to her forehead, letting the remaining heat in the ceramic sink into her flesh, letting the heat soothe the urge to cry yet again. Crying was _awful_ , she was finding, and she'd done it more today than she had in the last decade at least.

"As for your issue with heights," Sophie continued diplomatically, swirling the remains of her tea in the delicate china cup, "it doesn't really matter where it came from, or that you are afraid now. It doesn't even matter why you're afraid- it's a perfectly rational fear; if I'd dropped out of a vent without a single word of warning, you can bet that you probably couldn't pay me to go up to a great height ever again. However, I trust that you will be able to overcome it, Parker. You have an amazingly strong will, and I have no doubt that this will only make you stronger. After all, if you mastered your fear of heights once- and everyone has at least some instinctual fear of heights, and I'm assuming you trained yourself out of it, no, don't give me that look, Parker, I'm just being logical. Anyways, if you mastered it once, you can do it again. I believe in you, Parker," Sophie finished quietly, and she met and held Parker's gaze, letting the blond-haired woman see the truth in her eyes. She needed Parker to understand that what she was saying was the absolute truth.

Sophie's words had the rest of Parker's tension bleeding from her body, and she slumped against the back of her chair, going boneless with exhaustion. With her two biggest worries assuaged, Parker found herself hard pressed to keep her eyes open, thoroughly worn out despite the fact that it was just after noon.

But Sophie had one more thing to say, and she knew that Parker wasn't going to like it. She also knew that it had to be said, had to be said _now_ if it was actually going to sink into Parker's mind. If Sophie's suspicions were correct- and they almost always were- then sooner before later would be better because it would give Parker more time to consider the ideas that Sophie was planting in her brain.

"Parker..." Sophie bit her lip, the barest print of white teeth against the pink of her lips. "I think that...the argument that you and Eliot had? I don't think either of you were right. I think that both of you have a lot of apologies to make-"

Parker snapped up, nearly losing her grip on the mug of hot chocolate. "What?" she gasped, taken aback by Sophie's words. She hadn't expected her side of the matter to be defended, not really, not when she knew she'd said some unforgivable things. When people argued, it was all her fault, usually, because she didn't know how to see eye to eye with them, or she made them argue with each other. She'd been kicked out of more than one foster home as a result of it. This was somehow more and less than she'd been expecting. "I don't understand."

Sophie huffed a little breath that had only traces of humor in the sound. "You were in the wrong," she said bluntly, though there was no rancor in her voice. "I'm not contesting that. But Eliot was in the wrong too. You both let your anger get to you, and said some unforgivable things." Sophie's smile was a mercy after the harsh, if truthful, judgment. "But Parker, while during the argument itself you were both in the wrong, you..." her forehead creased as she tried to figure out the best way to phrase what Parker needed to head. "It was unfair of you to have leapt on Eliot like that- he really meant well. He not only opened his home to you, but has allowed you to stay there for over almost two months. I'm not saying he was completely correct in having sprung that on you in the first place, but let's be honest. There's no good way to tell someone that they're afraid, especially if they don't think that's the case."

Parker's mouth took on a distinctly mulish cast, her chin lifting. "He was mean. I hate him."

Sophie's eyes shamed Parker, but she held her ground. "I don't think you really hate him, Parker," she said softly, and the kindness in her eyes undid Parker.

"I'm tired," Parker complained, looking away, waiting for the punishment to fall, waiting for Sophie to kick her out of her home.

"I know, love," Sophie sighed. She came over, and though there was a part of Parker waiting for the blow to fall, Sophie's hand was painfully gentle as she brushed back Parker's hair, running gentle fingers through the gold locks. "I think you need some rest. Come on, you can use my bed until we get this all straightened out."

"Okay." Parker hated how tiny her voice sounded. "Okay," she said again in an effort to make it sound stronger. It just sounded grateful.

Sophie led her to bed, and tucked her in, going so far as to brush a kiss on Parker's forehead. She stood back from the bed, and Parker wondered when she'd gotten- not old, Sophie wasn't _old_ \- but older, certainly, wan and tired, the lines around her mouth and her eyes darkening in the dim light from the hallway.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, hating that it was her that made Sophie look like that. She thought she'd gotten used to those sorts of looks, the ones that said Parker had disappointed them, but with Sophie, it still hurt.

"Oh, Parker," Sophie said, leaning forward to brush her hair away from her face again. "It's okay, I promise. It will all be okay." She smiled, small and genuine, and left the room, shutting the door as she did so.

Despite Sophie's reassurance, it was a long, long time before Parker finally fell asleep.

~*~

Eliot knew the conversation wasn't going to end well when the first thing Hardison said when he opened the door was, "Dude, don't shoot the messenger."

And that pretty much set the tone of the entire subsequent conversation, which went something like this:

"I'll shoot the messenger if the messenger brings back news," Eliot countered, standing squarely in front of the door to his apartment, flatly refusing to let Hardison in.

Hardison shifted from foot to foot guiltily, unable to quite meet Eliot's eyes. "I'm here to pick up some stuff for Parker," Hardison admitted in a low voice. "Look, man, I don't know what happened, and I'm not here to ask any questions," he hastened to assure Eliot, unwilling to risk the hitter's wrath, hands raised defensively before him. "I don't even have to come in, but I've been sent to get Parker's clothing, her books, her drawing materials and her computer."

Eliot debated his options for a long moment before finally coming to the conclusion that, although slamming the door in Hardison's face might make him feel better, it wouldn't actually make Hardison leave any faster, and Eliot was far more interested in being left alone. "Fine," he spat, stepping aside just far enough that Hardison could slip past him; Eliot was darkly pleased that Hardison pressed against the doorframe in order to stay as far away from Eliot as possible.

"Where's her stuff?" Hardison asked after a moment, when it was clear that Eliot wasn't planning on volunteering any information.

"Around."

There was a beat of silence.

"Thanks," Hardison muttered under his breath. How had he been dragged into this again? Oh, right, it had been Sophie with her disarming charm and bright smile that had convinced him to enter the lair of the beast.

He just hoped they found his body.

Eliot stalked off towards the kitchen, and then Hardison heard cabinets being opened and closed with more force than usual. Left to his own devices, Hardison figured that the clothing would be the easiest thing to gather, and thus headed towards the former spare room, which was now the de facto Parker's room. He rummaged around in her drawers, awkwardly withdrawing a stack of underwear and bras, trying his best not to look at them. It was one thing when they were on women and in the process of being taken off, but Hardison felt just plain awkward to be handling the items themselves, waiting for Eliot to come in at any moment and beat him up for being a pervert. No alarm was raised however, as Hardison quickly shoved them all into the suitcase he'd brought with him. After the undergarments came pajamas and jeans and t-shirts and a couple of jackets. Hardison hoped that he was picking the right clothing- he didn't exactly have an eye for fashion. To be fair, Parker didn't really have one either, but since she was currently with Sophie, Hardison knew she wouldn't be permitted to leave the apartment looking anything less than her best.

When he'd practically emptied the drawers that Parker had been using into the suitcase, he sighed a little, unwilling to go back out and draw attention to himself. Eliot was in a foul mood, of that there was no doubt, and he'd always been the kind of guy who punched first and asked questions later, assuming he asked them at all. He wondered exactly what had happened. Sophie had hinted that there'd been a disastrous argument between the pair, but hadn't exactly been forthcoming with details. Though generally Hardison would be the first to demand the dirty details, because he hated nothing more than secrets, than being kept in the dark when it wasn't absolutely necessary, something in Parker's face- for she'd been standing behind Sophie as the grifter made the request- had him shutting his mouth without saying another word about the issue that had driven Parker form Eliot's home. It made him worried and anxious though, in ways that he couldn't quite name, because when he'd visited just a few days prior, they'd been so in tune with each other that it had reminded him of the dimmest memories he had of his own parents, little more than two shadows who held his hands and looked at each other like they mattered. It was odd, very odd- of all the people he'd believed would be comfortable with one another, Eliot and Parker hadn't been exactly on his list, but they just made it work.

He kneeled in front of the suitcase for a moment, lost in thought. Eliot and Parker weren't exactly known for their patience and understanding, and Hardison found himself inclined to believe that it was probably a stupid argument that they'd both blown out of proportion. Parker's face had shown it was something more, but Hardison couldn't think of anything that could have upset the notoriously strange thief to that extent.

He blew out a frustrated breath, resigning himself to the fact that he'd probably never know what this was all about.

He edged out of the doorway, almost running into Eliot, who was scowling and looming in a rather intimidating way. Hardison jumped, nearly missing running over Eliot's foot with the wheels of the suitcase. "Just a few more things!" Hardison assured Eliot with a near manic cheerfulness. He hurried past Eliot and back into the main room, spotting the clutter near on the coffee table and correctly assuming that it was mostly Parker's things. Eliot was far tidier than the thief.

Expertly, Hardison spotted the computer he'd loaned to Parker and packed it up, putting everything neatly away with a care that he hadn't given to Parker's clothing. He showed that same delicacy to the DVDs and other gadgets he'd given Parker, Eliot observed, and somehow that just made his mood even worse. Hardison wandered around the room, picking up various books here and there that couldn't possibly be Eliot's- everything from _Confessions of a Shopaholic_ , to a copy of _A Study in Scarlet_. It was an eclectic set of books, which fit right in with the rest of Parker's personality. Hardison found himself smiling fondly as he stacked the books in neat piles in the suitcase and zipped everything up, ready to depart.

"You forgot her drawing stuff," Eliot observed in a voice that was trying very hard to be neutral and mostly failing.

Hardison's brow creased as he looked around him. "Oh, yeah," he said. "Do you know where it is?" he asked, in the hopes that since Eliot was volunteering that he'd forgotten it in the first place, he'd actually be helpful for once. He was also wary, however, of this sudden helpfulness when Eliot had flatly refused to be of any aid earlier. Hardison wondered why he was being helpful now, and then decided it would be best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Besides, the faster he got out of here, the happier he was sure Eliot would be.

Mouth in a tight line, Eliot just pointed to a shelf, and Hardison was forced to wonder how he'd missed it- it was a haphazard stack of papers of various sizes, dark pencil scrawled over the parts that he could see. "Thanks, man!" Hardison said, and he couldn't help wincing a little at that too-cheerful voice that was surely rubbing Eliot the wrong way. He hated that Eliot was so touchy sometimes and wished for a moment that he wasn't so easily aggravated. He considered the image that presented and then thought the better of it. As vexing as it was, an Eliot that was not easily aggravated wouldn't really be Eliot. Besides, Hardison had made a game of pushing Eliot's buttons during cons when it was nothing but hours spent waiting on Sophie to do some critical bit of grifting. Life was more interesting that way.

With Hardison's thoughts elsewhere, he shouldn't have been surprised when he accidentally knocked over a set of sketches, sending them all across the neat hardwood floor. Cursing under his breath, Hardison picked up the pictures- and his breath caught in his lungs.

It was an image of Nate, perhaps the size of Hardison's palm, and the picture smiled gently up at him- it was the smile Nate gave them when he was particularly proud of them, paternal and a little indulgent. She's even managed to capture the way Nate's curls fell across his forehead and the lines on his face that spoke of age and experience. He rifled through the pictures, seeing Sophie and himself, and then a self-portrait done by Parker, before happening on a picture of Eliot.

"Umm," Hardison said awkwardly, unsure of exactly what kind of response he was supposed to make to the obvious passion that had been used to make the drawing.

Eliot stalked over, heated words on his lips, when he caught sight of what exactly was in Hardison's arms and he turned away, silent.

Never let it be said that Hardison couldn't connect the dots, especially not dots as clearly laid out as the ones before him. "If you ever...um, you know. Want to talk. Or something."

"I don't think so," Eliot spat back frigidly, scooping up the remaining pictures on the floor and shoving them at Hardison, who scrambled to organize them into some sort of order before they were permanently creased by Eliot's rough handling. "In fact, don't ever speak of this again."

It was awfully hard, Hardison found, to be angry in return when the hard edges of Eliot's face had been softened as a result of the smile on Eliot's face in the image that Parker had crafted so expertly. "Alright," Hardison said neutrally, but even that was too much kindness for Eliot to bear.

"Out!" he told Hardison fiercely, herding the darker man towards the door. "Out, out, out!" he demanded, practically throwing Hardison out the door, not even giving him a chance to put away the drawings and sketchbooks that were in his hand. The suitcase wasn't even zipped all the way, and when it was tossed out of Eliot's apartment with equal fervor and hit the opposite wall, a few bits of clothing tumbled out.

The door slammed shut with an unmistakable tone of finality.

Solemnly, Hardison picked up everything and organized it out there in the hallways, neatly packing everything so that he wouldn't ruin either his electronics or Parker's art, cushioning them both with Parker's clothing. He had a feeling that Eliot would regret it if he found out later he'd permanently ruined or destroyed Parker's hard work. From inside the apartment, Hardison could just hear the sound of Eliot going at his punching bag, a muffled _whump_ on each impact.

Hardison debated pounding on the door until Eliot let him in again, but that wasn't how things worked between them. Eliot would forgive him for leaving, for taking Parker's stuff back to her, for leaving his apartment too empty to be borne. He'd forgive Hardison for being kind when Eliot had just wanted someone to be senselessly angry at.

He wouldn't forgive Hardison for seeing him with his shields down, for all that they both knew that Hardison would never speak of what he'd seen. The wound from whatever had gone down between Parker and him was too fresh to let someone else see him without his habitual anger to use as a defense, though Hardison was as close to him as a brother.

Hardison let shaking hands rest on the top of the suitcase for a moment, eyes clenched shut as he listened intently to what was going on in Eliot's apartment.

It was one of the hardest decisions he'd ever made, but Hardison forced himself to walk down the hallway without looking back.

~*~

Sophie tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, nails making tiny clicking sounds that Parker heard even over the hum of music filling the car. "Can you please not do that?" Parker snapped, irritable. She hadn't been sleeping well of late, unexplained aches and sores popping up with surprising regularity. She couldn't get comfortable on the pull-out bed from Sophie's couch, and despite the fact that Hardison had brought the majority of her stuff from Eliot's place, she was constantly listless, unable to concentrate on anything.

It had, all in all, conspired to leave her in an exceptionally black mood as Sophie drove her to the hospital to remove her cast.

It should have been a happy day, she should have been ready to jump for joy over the fact that she was finally going to be free of that restricting cast, that her body was finally her own again- but Eliot's words and her newfound fear had done nothing but suck the joy from her body.

"Parker," Sophie sighed in warning as the thief began fiddling with the window control. Parker scowled. Sophie had been sighing an awful lot around her, for all she wouldn't come out and say something.

"What?" Parker snapped.

"You're going to break it," Sophie chastised mildly, never taking her eyes off the road. "And I hate taking my car into the shop. Stop, please."

Parker sank lower in her seat, brow furrowing as she muttered to herself.

"I am right next to you, Parker," Sophie said, this time a little sharper, her hands tightening on her steering wheel. "I can hear everything you're saying."

Parker made a face at Sophie. "I know."

Sophie shot Parker a look that let her know in no uncertain terms that she was not pleased. Sophie raised an eyebrow. "And this is the thanks I get for letting you stay with me for the last two weeks?" Sophie shook her head. "Have I done something wrong?" she queried, knowing full well she had not.

Parker knew that too. "No," she muttered sullenly, staring at her feet rather intently.

"You really ought to make up with Eliot," Sophie advised suddenly. "You were happier when you were staying with him, you know. And don't make any excuses- I know it's not the same with me. And that's alright. But Parker, you can't just give up on Eliot and shut him out of your life. You were both in the wrong, you both made mistakes. He meant well, though he probably didn't attack the problem from the right direction. You need to apologize too- the longer this sits and festers, the angrier and more bitter you're both going to get, which is something that I'd absolutely hate to have happen, Parker." Sophie's eyes were too bright, too knowing, and Parker stared out the window, doing her best to shut out Sophie's words.

She was wrong- she had to be. Eliot had robbed her of the thing that made her Parker, of her freedom and her independence. She curled up in her seat, opening the window despite the overcast sky and closed her eyes, facing into the wind. For a few moments she was able to trick herself into believing she was feeling the wind blow past her face as she plummeted from a building, the silence roaring in her ears. She never felt safer than when she was falling- or at least, she had.

Beside her, Sophie made a small noise of apology in the back of her throat, reaching out and brushing the knuckles of her hand against the skin at Parker's temple. "Just think about it, Parker, can you promise me that?"

With the wind overpowering all her senses, Parker nodded. "Yeah, I guess."

~*~

"You know," Hardison began, then hesitated, looking torn as he watched Parker attack an apple with a knife that was probably far too large for the job. "Eliot, um, he's not-"

Parker looked over at Hardison, eyes a little too sharp as she stopped what she was doing and raised her knife. A wide smile grew on her face, lacking humor. "Yes?" she asked pleasantly as she paused in her wholesale destruction of fruit.

The look in her eyes made Hardison wish he was in a galaxy far, far away.

 _Far_ away.

As far as possible, in fact.

Hardison edged away from Parker. "Never mind," he said quickly. "It's nothing, just me thinking out loud."

Parker nodded in satisfaction, but the manic gleam didn't fade from her eyes as she returned to the apple with far more gusto than was appropriate. "That's what I thought."

Hardison figured that leaving the kitchen would probably be the safest option.

~*~

Nate, at least, was subtle.

"Good morning, Parker," he said pleasantly, face flushed from the warm weather that had finally truly set in. He had a jacket slung over one arm that he dumped almost immediately over the back of Sophie's couch, a plain grey t-shirt underneath. "What's up?"

Parker, who had been gazing at her arm for several days in non-stop horror at it's shriveled appearance- though it was finally getting better- barely looked up to acknowledge their leader. She poked at the skin, frowning a little when it remained a little wrinkly. The doctors had assured her that as she began using her arm regularly again, the muscle would come back, but Parker had hoped that when her cast came off, she'd be ready to help with cons again. Everything seemed to be conspiring against her.

"Rotten," she told Nate truthfully, making a face.

Nate chuckled a little. "Do you want to come for a walk with me? I've got to run a few errands, and I thought I'd stop by that pastry shop you really like," he said, raising his eyebrows enticingly. "If you come with me, I'll buy you that raspberry-chocolate tart you're always staring at."

Parker couldn't help but smile. There were very few problems that chocolate couldn't fix, and a boring day wasn't one of them. "Alright," she agreed. "Let me get shoes and tell Sophie where I'm going."

Nate nodded, but before he or Parker could say anything more, Sophie left her room as she fastened a necklace around her neck. She looked completely unsurprised that Nate had let himself in, and even less surprised that he was trying to coerce Parker out into the sun for a little while. "If you're going out, bring me back a fruit tart, would you?" she said in greeting, smiling widely. "Though, if you'd like, you can use the car- I'm planning on going to see an exhibition at the museum of modern art. You can drop me off and then do your errands."

"No, it's warm enough out that I wanted to walk," Nate countered. "In a couple of months it's going to be frigid again. I want to enjoy the nice weather while it's still here. Is that okay with you, Parker?" When Parker nodded, Nate raised an eyebrow, asking silently, "Is that good enough?"

Sophie shrugged, fingers still trying to get the necklace to clasp correctly. "Suit yourself. Nate, can you-" Nate's fingers were already on the gold chain, so Sophie lifted her dark locks, an intimate expression creeping over her face. Parker rolled her eyes, and wondered when they would finally, _finally_ just get a room.

"I'm going to get my shoes," she said, and Sophie and Nate just nodded, too wrapped up in whatever it was they had these days. She slipped on her sneakers and deftly braided her hair to keep it out of her face. It was fairly windy today, though hot, and she didn't want to end up with hair in her mouth. "You ready?" she asked Nate.

"Yeah," he said absently, handing Sophie her jacket from the closet. "You always think it's too cold in museums," he said by way of explanation. Sophie smiled, and then both Nate and Parker followed her out of the apartment, saying goodbye to her when she reached her car.

Nate took Parker on a veritable tour of the city; he had to do everything from transferring some funds into the American Cancer Society, the way he did every month, to picking up a suit from the drycleaners. Parker was beginning to get bored even with Nate's easy conversation when Nate finally told her, in a voice that was filled with good humor, "I think you've been patient enough. On to Izzy's, right?"

Parker lit up at that, a broad smile growing on her face. It seemed that she would be well rewarded for her patience. "Yes!" she exclaimed, delighted.

She didn't realize what he was doing, at first- he'd been taking such circuitous routes all day that she barely noticed it when Nate took them on a meandering path through the city towards Izzy's. She shouldn't have taken it for granted that he just wanted to enjoy the nice weather, that he was just enjoying her company. Nate always had ulterior motives, always had something else up his sleeve, and no more so than when dealing with his own stubborn teammates.

She didn't put everything together until she realized that the area was familiar- too familiar, in fact, because she'd spent almost two months exploring it when it was either wander around the city or using Eliot's walls as target practice for the throwing knives that he didn't think she knew existed.

She made a shocked sound, betrayed, and Nate looked over at her, guileless. "Yes?" he inquired pleasantly. "What is it, Parker?"

"How could you!" she hissed, outraged. "Why would you bring me here?"

Nate narrowed his eyes at her. "Eliot doesn't have a monopoly on the eight block radius around his apartment, you know. We probably won't even see him." When Parker stopped where she was standing, Nate stopped a few paces ahead of her, glancing over his shoulder. "Are you coming with me or not?" he asked.

Parker shifted her weight from foot to foot, debating. On one hand, she ran the risk of meeting Eliot. On the other hand, there were chocolate and raspberries.

Chocolate and raspberries won.

That did not, stop her from shielding herself behind Nate for most of the remainder of their walk, watching everyone and everything around her as though Eliot might suddenly spring out from behind a corner and take her down. She knew the thought was probably ridiculous, but she didn't particularly care.

When Nate finally opened the door of Izzy's like the gentleman he was, Parker skirted by him, breathing a sigh of relief when she didn't see Eliot inside. She'd already cased the place before she'd ever bought food here, and she knew that there were four exits that were easily accessible, that the oven made clattering noises above four hundred degrees, and the son of the couple who owned the shop inhaled an average of seven times a minute, which really told her everything she needed to know.

As Nate let her pick out a table that was more or less equal distance from all the possible exits, he reminded her, "You can't avoid Eliot forever, you know."

Parker scowled at Nate, crossing her arms over her chest. "You wanna bet?


	8. Chapter 8

Sounds- there were people, between her and the exit. She froze on Sophie's couch where she was stretched out under a blanket, keeping her breath even and her eyes closed, just as she'd trained herself, retaining a relaxed posture but already plotting on the best way to escape. She could feel a breeze on her face, so Sophie's windows were still open, and it wasn't too long after she'd fallen asleep.

"You're going to wake her!" Sophie hissed, and Parker relaxed just a touch at the familiar voice, knowing that at least she wasn't in any immediate physical danger that she needed to escape from. She didn't show any other signs of being awake, however, wondering what had gotten Sophie worried about her overhearing. There was a decidedly male noise of complaint- Nate, then, was with Sophie. That made sense, since Nate and Sophie had started whispering around her lately. Parker hated whispering, because whispering meant secrets, and almost nothing good came of keeping secrets. "Come on, into the kitchen, or she'll hear us," Sophie murmured, and there was the sound of shoes against the floor, for all they were trying to be silent.

Parker rose, tossing aside the blanket that had been covering her and crept across the room towards the kitchen without making a sound. She felt moderately guilty of the fact that she was spying on her friends, but not nearly guilty enough to stop. She was desperate to know exactly what it was that they didn't want her to hear, danger alarms going off in her head at full volume. As she moved, Sophie's voice became clearer from the kitchen- she seemed to be berating Nate for something, if her tone was anything to go by. She couldn't hear the exact words, however. Parker was careful to stay out of sight of the doorway that let into the kitchen, plastering herself against the wall, mindful not to draw any attention from herself. When she was confident that she wouldn't be seen she took one step forward, then another, until she could finally hear what Sophie and Nate were talking about, heart hammering in her chest.

"What do you take me for!" Nate was saying in an anguished whisper. "I wouldn't dream of it- Parker's irreplaceable, you know that as well as I do."

"Then what's the problem?" Sophie retorted, mindful of how loud her voice was getting. In a much lower tone, so low that Parker had to hold her breath and quiet her pulse just to hear the words, Sophie continued, "Just give her time."

Nate's sigh was mournful. "I've given her time, Sophie. Look- Parker getting hurt? It happens- shit happens. I won't kick her off the team or anything ridiculous like that, and no, Sophie, don't look at me like that because I know what you were thinking and I'm not a complete heartless bastard. Parker's healed though, her body is fine. But if she's afraid of doing her job, then we need someone on whom we can rely until Parker gets back on her feet. You know that we can't last forever on this small cons, not when we're forced to work around not having a thief. Someone's going to get killed doing a job they're not prepared for, Sophie, and I won't have it. We've got to find a temporary replacement."

Parker's heart stopped, blood roaring in her ears.

She heard it when Sophie cursed, a long elegant stream of words that sounded practically obscene coming from that cultured tone. "We can't do this to Parker," Sophie whispered, and there was the thick sound of- oh god, those were tears. She'd made Sophie cry. She'd made _Sophie cry_.

Nate didn't sound much better, voice going horse as he said, "Soph, come here," and there was a rustling sound of clothes on clothes- an embrace then, and Parker could see in her mind's eye the way they were probably pressed against one another, Sophie hiding her tear-stained face in Nate's neck while Nate stared off at something that only he could see, willing himself not to show how much he was being affected.

Parker's eyes filled up and the tears spilled down her cheeks. She caught a sob between her lips, and she covered her face with her hands, curling in on herself. _A replacement, they're bringing a replacement because I'm scared to do my job, and I've been hating and blaming Eliot when it wasn't his fault, not really, when he tried to help and he's not perfect and I'm not perfect and we were both cowards who couldn't apologize and I told him I hated him when I didn't, the complete opposite in fact, and now I've been driving everyone else away from me, and now I might lose the only functioning thing I've got_ \- she stood, wiping at her tears angrily, furious with herself and determined that this was it, that this was the end.

She'd pitied herself long enough. It was time to stop wallowing in her own fears, in her own anger and pain. Nate and Sophie and Hardison had been kind these past two weeks, letting her do as she pleased, letting her make her own decisions even if they were bad ones, even if they were the wrong ones. She would not, however, let them make a bad decision because she couldn't face what was in the mirror.

And Eliot-

Parker bit her lip hard enough that she could taste blood. She and Eliot would have to talk, to explain. Suddenly, the feeling that had been hanging over her since she'd left Eliot's clarified, and she knew it for the loneliness and bone deep sorrow that it was, despite the fact that she was surrounded by people who loved her for some strange reason, despite the fact that she shouldn't be upset. Everything was falling into place now, the pieces slotting themselves into position as though they been there all the time but she'd just been so unwilling to see them that she'd purposefully blinded herself.

Oh.

 _Oh. Then I- but not yet. First things first_. Parker backed away from the kitchen slowly, and the minute she was out of hearing distance she fled to where the majority of her items were, clawing through to find her wallet. There could be no question that the others would catch up to her eventually- it was just a matter of getting a good enough head start for now, a long enough head start that she could accomplish what she needed to do. And then everything would be colorful again, and she could come back, and she could make Eliot smile in the way he only did when she was around.

Yes. And things would be good again.

She smiled incandescently at the mere thought. The shape of things wouldn't be the same, of course, but that was fine. Sometimes new things were good things.

She slipped out of Sophie's apartment before the other two were any the wiser, feeling more like herself than she had since the air vent had given out from under her.

~*~

"Nice job," Nate said casually to Sophie when they heard the door shut, the sound barely audible- it wouldn't have been audible, if fact, if they hadn't been specifically waiting for it.

"Well, it _is_ how I make a living," Sophie agreed, stepping out of the circle of Nate's arms, but not before she pressed against him a little bit harder, feeling every inch of him. "I like to think I'm rather good at it," she finished impishly.

Nate sounded almost breathless as he answered, "Just a bit."

Sophie tilted her head to the side, suddenly pensive, smile dropping away. "Do you think Parker will find out?" she asked, worry appearing in her eyes.

Nate thought for a moment, giving the question careful consideration. "I think that by the time she does know it won't matter, and I think that sometimes you have to make hard decisions."

Sophie nodded absorbing that, satisfied with Nate's answer. Then her mood lightened once more. "Hard decisions?" she repeated, gazing up at Nate through her lashes, moving from concerned to shamelessly sensual with ease. Sophie always had been rather mercurial on the surface, though Nate would be the first one to vouch for the warmth and caring Sophie kept close to her heart.

"Well, someone's got to make them."

"Then I have another hard decision for you to make," Sophie purred, then leaned up and murmured in a voice that ghosted against Nate's skin. "Should we head to the bedroom or not?"

"At least give me something remotely challenging," Nate retorted with mock exasperation as he tugged Sophie in the direction of her bed.

Sophie smiled, wide and bright and true. "Maybe later."

~*~

"Well, Hardison?" Nate snapped, pacing back and forth across the floor of his apartment. Though he'd been the one to suggest this plan to Sophie, the one to actually put everything in motion, it was different than a normal con. In fact, he didn't even want to think of it as a con, because that implied that he and Sophie where trying to do them harm, which was the last thing on his mind. This act, the play, whatever the hell it was, was only meant to give Parker and Eliot the opportunity to become something more, something stronger.

It was harder to stay focused, however, because he kept wanting to call Parker and demand she return home so he could bundle her up in a closet and lock her away from harm, despite the fact that she'd been working as a thief before even leaving her teens. And while Eliot was more than capable of handling himself, Nate knew that one false move would bring all of Eliot's ire down on him, possibly breaking his trust in the process if he found out at the wrong moment; Eliot wouldn't take kindly to matchmaking, if that was even the right word for what it was they were doing.

Sophie, demonstrating her amazing ability to read his mind, mouthed, "It _is_ matchmaking," from behind Hardison while Eliot was leaning over the hacker's shoulder, harassing the man for more information. Nate rolled his eyes.

That, at least, was as good a confirmation as any that he and Sophie weren't just making it up- Eliot had been absolutely frantic since Sophie had 'revealed' that Parker had run away without leaving so much as a note in the process. Hardison had immediately started tracking her, fervently hoping that since she was still using the card that Hardison issued and the alias Alice White, she didn't want to disappear off the grid completely. That didn't make it easier, of course, since Parker had set a variety of false leads out.

"I think I've got her," Hardison said finally, bringing up the information on the main screen. "She'd flying out to Colorado."

"Colorado?" Sophie asked, and she wasn't faking the surprise and confusion in her voice. "What on Earth is Parker doing out in Colorado."

"Your guess is as good as mine," Eliot said grimly. "Why didn't she warn us- why did she just up and leave without letting us know where she was going and why. Was it..." Eliot left the 'me' unspoken, but Sophie shook her head.

"That wouldn't make sense- she would have run days ago if that was the case." Sophie paused for a moment and then her mouth dropped open, blanching, and then her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, Nate, what if-"

Nate's carefully perfected expression of horror took over his features as he filled in the necessary blanks for Hardison and Eliot, the appropriate amount of guilt darkening his words. "I went to visit Sophie the other day, while Parker was asleep. It's been over two months, and we haven't run any real cons." Nate closed his eyes, turning away though he could feel their eyes burning holes in his back. "I wanted to ask Sophie about getting a substitute for the next con or two, just until Parker gets back on her feet, I promise. If Parker wasn't really asleep, or misheard something- I would never dream of replacing her permanently- that's not even possible, surely she understood-" he knew his expression was stricken, and he didn't have to fake the stress and anxiety that was coursing through him. All he had to think about was if Parker really _had_ heard the wrong bit of the conversation, and horror flooded him.

"But this is Parker," Eliot finished heavily, dully. Nate was relieved to hear there was no condemnation, though Nate had expected it and been prepared to diffuse it. It seems that for Eliot, worry for Parker was taking front seat to everything, even now, and it was clear that Eliot knew it was impossible to rely on a thief who was afraid of heights, and they couldn't stay out of the game forever. "And even if she did hear everything, she probably took it the wrong way."

"Shit, man," Hardison had his eyes closed. "That's not good. Like, a man named Khan out for revenge not good."

Sophie was pacing now too, her heels clicking sharply against the floor. "I should have known better than to even speak of it while she was around! What if something happens to her, or she thinks the better of it all and decides to leave for real-" Nate knew that just as he hadn't been faking his worry earlier, Sophie wasn't faking her guilt and anxiety now, her face remaining deathly white. She wrapped her arms around herself, and in an exquisite moment of acting she turned away, letting her shoulders tremble just once before inhaling sharply and turning back to the others, face in a calm mask, though she seemed at a loss for what to say.

"I'll go after her," Eliot announced into that loaded silence. "Hardison, get me a flight out to Colorado, get me where she's staying, everything." As Hardison typed away, putting Eliot on the next flight out and investigating anything else that might give Eliot the edge, the hitter continued, "I know how to be stealthy- in a place like Colorado, I'll fit right in. Since we don't know what Parker's up to, the last thing we'll want to do is draw attention to ourselves and frighten her off."

Nate nodded, once. In a quiet voice, he said, "Thank you, Eliot."

Eliot made a face. "I'm not doing this for you," he warned coldly.

Nate's smile was small and crooked, but there. "I know. That's why I'm thanking you. Go bring Parker home."

~*~

Of all the places in Colorado that Eliot had expected to end up, a small nondescript town in the Rocky Mountains wasn't one of them.

The town was active enough, of course- it was in the middle of several excellent rock climbing and hiking areas, and thus was a fairly popular tourist destination. It wasn't, however, the sort of place from which one could disappear easily. Though this was a touristy area, this was the sort of town where parents took their children because their parents had taken them; it was a close community despite the people coming and going, a warm and friendly town where the inns and bed and breakfasts were run by the locals, where at least half the stores were all mom-and-pop shops that had been around for fifty years.

It was, somehow, not the sort of place Eliot could see Parker being comfortable.

Parker liked anonymity, liked being able to escape in the shadows. Yet he'd spotted her here twice already since coming in that morning, and both times she'd been greeted with smiles and calls of "Sarah!" which Parker easily and gladly returned. It was a little unnerving- Parker was supposed to be off sulking and angry and confused from Nate and Sophie's discussion, not on vacation.

Somehow, those smiles of hers were thin and weak in comparison to the ones Eliot had managed to tease out of her before they'd argued. When Parker smiled, really smiled, her face lit up like a child's, with a warm innocence that Eliot couldn't help enjoying, even if he never returned the look.

For the next day and a half, Eliot wandered around the town, asking questions as subtly as he knew how to, trying to figure out the nuances that Hardison's information hadn't given him. Hardison had known where Parker was staying, for example, but not that the last time she'd visited was nearly six years ago, when every year for a decade before that she'd visited at least once, usually during the summer months.

It was curious, really, to hear the story of Sarah, and not Parker. Sarah was a sweet girl, well meaning, if a little awkward. It was like hearing about a Parker that didn't have darkness to temper her- a little strange, but mostly bittersweet. He learned, with a well placed question here and there, a little bit about her past, about what she did here- nothing that by itself was important, but taken in conjunction with everything else that Eliot learned told him that Parker had mostly spent her days out in the wilderness, lingering until nearly dark before rushing back into the city.

On the third morning, Eliot followed her out.

She led him on a merry chase up the mountain, and Eliot briefly wondered if she knew he was following and was using the most obscure trails on purpose. Parker hadn't been trained to pick up every clue that a person left behind in the wilderness, however, and whenever Eliot lost sight of her, he just used the evidence on the ground before him to lead him on his way. Just as he was despairing, wondering if he would be spending the day hiking after Parker as she wandered aimlessly around the mountainside, the trail opened up to a clearing that sat against a cliff, painting a beautiful view of the surrounding forest. Eliot could even see a wide river glinting off in the distance between the trees despite the fact that he was safely ensconced in the trees to prevent Parker from noticing his presence.

From the safety of the trees, Eliot watched as Parker set down her backpack, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. She neatly tied back her hair, waving a hand in front of her face a little in an effort to cool off. Then, with the ease that can only come with extensive experience, Parker set up all of her rappelling gear, and had it attached to the ground before clipping herself in an standing at the edge of the cliff. He waited for Parker to do something, anything.

He waited.

And waited.

And _waited._

However, Parker just paced back and forth, at the edge, unable to throw herself over, but equally unable to give up and remain trapped by her fear. Eliot's entire body tensed when Parker let out a cry of frustration and pitched a rock over the edge before stumbling back, chest heaving when she came too close to the edge. She rubbed at her face as she turned away from that open expanse, exhaustion in every line of her body.

She looked...diminished, as though someone had turned off that innate glow that made Parker who she was, as though it was a lamp that could be turned off at will. She slumped to the ground then, limbs akimbo as she gazed at the sky, and though the sun remained as bright as ever, Eliot went cold in the shadows of the trees.

He wondered if now was the right time to go out to Parker, wondered if he wasn't about to screw things up horribly, and then shook his head at himself, a certain wryness enveloping him. He'd always been the do or die, the go getter, the first one to volunteer. Why should this be any different?

He stepped out of the trees.

~*~

Parker glanced up as the bushes rustled and Eliot stepped out. She smiled, a little sardonically, as he did so. She'd known he was following her from the beginning- she'd expected someone to come, of course, because she knew Nate well enough that she wasn't going to be allowed to just leave without a moment's notice. This was more subtle than she'd expected Eliot to go, however; she would have put her money on him tracking her down and dragging her back to Boston if he had to. It was nice of him to finally join her, at least. Parker turned her face back to the sky, closing her eyes resolutely as he joined her on the ground.

"It looks like you need a push." Eliot informed her; a shadow fell over her face, and she knew that Eliot was leaning over her.

"I'm not a bird. I don't need to get shoved out of a nest," Parker retorted, opening one eye to glare at Eliot properly.

In that southern drawl she adored so much, Eliot answered, "Oh, I wouldn't say that. You've been staring over that edge pretty damn long. Maybe that mama bird knows something you don't."

Parker couldn't help but grin at that, despite her best efforts to maintain her annoyed expression. She'd intended to be pissed that Nate and Sophie had sent someone after her, that they were interfering in what she needed to do, but Eliot's jovial tone and wit had- despite its forced tones- managed to lighten her heart. "Oh, and are you my mama?" she teased.

"Do I look like I've got a frilly apron hidden somewhere?"

Parker's gaze flitted over Eliot's body, lingering, and Eliot couldn't help the flush that spread over his cheeks. "Well..." Parker mused meaningfully, and then stuck out her tongue at Eliot, grinning broadly. "I suppose not," she conceded. "I could get you one, if you think it would help."

"Not exactly," Eliot murmured wry, then continued, "And if a frilly apron ends up in my apartment, I'll know exactly who put it there, and enact my revenge." Parker laughed out loud at that, and Eliot did so as well, startled into a brief chuckle at Parker's obvious good humor.

Eliot paused then, heart growing heavy as he forced himself to remind Parker why they were there. They couldn't avoid the issue forever, much as Eliot would have liked to. "Well, if it's not my job to push you over the edge, whose is it?" Eliot asked, and there was no way Parker could mistake his meaning.

Her face darkened, and she stood up from the grass, pacing across the clearing anxiously, brushing the grass off herself, fiddling with her bangs, straightening her harness- anything to avoid looking directly at Eliot. "I'll do it myself," Parker finally groused, and though she endeavored to sound somewhat light-hearted, her voice and expression was too bitter, too anxious. She cursed, quiet and vehement under her breath, going to stand at the edge once more, looking out at the serene wilderness. "I can do it." She didn't know who she was reassuring- Eliot or herself. She'd been out here for four days, and she didn't feel any more courageous than she had that very first afternoon. How many times had she stood at this edge, trying to make that body take that extra step over into thin air?

Defeated, she turned back to Eliot, face pleading. "I just need some more time," she told Eliot. "You can go back, ask Nate to hold off on finding someone else, I'm almost there, really-"

"Don't make false promises," Eliot snapped back, irrationally irritated at Parker's stalling. It seemed she needed some impetus to push her over the edge. _Literally, in this case,_ Eliot thought with a wry humor. He steeled himself against Parker's pleading expression, and then told her, "If you keep trying to excuse your fear, you're never going to get over it! You're going to be stuck always asking for more time, saying 'one more day, one more day' until one day we aren't just looking for a temporary replacement, we're looking for someone on a permanent basis! Something's going to have to give, Parker- we _need_ to be able to rely on you!"

"You _can_ rely on me!" The words burst out of Parker, sunlight catching the wetness on her face and making it shimmer a little. "I'm not making false promises, Eliot, I swear I'm not-"

Again Eliot interrupted Parker, stalking forward, looming over her, trying to get her to _understand_. " _Prove. It,_ " he bit out.

Parker's eyes widened in terror for a moment, and Eliot wondered if he'd gone too far, if he'd finally succeed in alienating Parker permanently. She took half a step back, leaning away from him, and Eliot could see where Parker's pulse was fluttering in her throat, a column of white against the black of the harness. Eliot made an aborted move towards Parker, intending to reach out to her and then thinking the better of it a second later.

Then Parker's eyes narrowed deviously.

 _Uh oh_ , Eliot thought.

Parker pressed against him, sinuous body so close he could feel the thudding of her heart against his chest- or maybe that was just his own, going into overdrive at the feel of Parker. Eliot stood there, stunned, brain too scrambled to even think about escaping her grip, because this was _Parker_ and she'd wrapped her arms around him, breath hot against his neck and _oh god-!_

She drew back, and there was an ominous sounding _click_ from the area of his midsection.

"Oh no. No, no, no, _no_!" Eliot protested, trying to get out of Parker's grip without hurting her. "I know what you're thinking, and I don't like what you're thinking, so stop thinking it!" he demanded.

"Hold on!" Parker just shouted over his words with far too much glee, drowning out whatever Eliot had to say.

Parker threw them both over the edge.

Eliot's breath caught in his throat as the world spun crazily around him, the green of the trees melding in strange skewed patterns to the blue of the sky. There was a certain almost purple tone to the rocks that flashed and disappeared before his eyes as the angle of his fall changed; he even caught a split second glimpse of what looked like a bird nest cradled between a set of rocks, the newborn birds safe from harm. The gold of the sun lit everything up, making it sparkle and shine in ways that Eliot had never seen before, mostly because he'd never jumped headfirst off a cliff before. The gold glinted off the water from the river, turning it myriad colors that Eliot couldn't begin to name. It was...it was...

Exhilarating.

Eliot absorbed all he could, time stretching out as they fell over the edge of the cliff, things that should have passed too close to be observed lasting long enough for Eliot to notice every last detail.

It wasn't like falling. Not like proper freefall, where you felt out of control and frantic and scrabbling to find some sort of purchase. This was controlled falling.

This was flying.

Parker righted them expertly, flipping them around as the line slowed and they came to a perfectly balanced halt, swinging slightly in midair. The cliff face was several feet back from them, giving them a little room to maneuver as they adjusted themselves slightly in order to be more comfortable. Even so, the close quarters of the harness demanded that they be pressed tightly against one another, so much so that Eliot could feel every breath Parker took.

Eliot looked around him, now that he wasn't falling, expecting to have the exhilaration fade, but it didn't. He looked down at his toes, which were dangling over a wide expanse of trees and a small stream that could just barely be seen amidst the greenery. Everything was beginning to bloom, bringing subtle points of color that offset the otherwise overwhelming green of the predominant pine trees, seen only as glimpses in the clearings around them. The sun was high in the sky, bright and warm, giving everything an edge of gold. It was, Eliot had to reluctantly admit, even if only to himself, one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen.

"You see it too, now, don't you?" Parker said suddenly, voice hushed in his ear.

She sounded reverent, like this was her church and she was in prayer. _Maybe it is_ , Eliot though, the thought making him view Parker in a new light. This was as close as she ever seemed to get to being absolutely at peace, face serene. It was only with the absence of the fear that had aged her face that Eliot realized how affected she'd been by the entire experience.

"This is why I started working as a thief, you know. It doesn't matter if you're suspended from a building or from a cliff, you don't get this feeling anywhere else in the world. The first time I actually managed to get myself over the edge, I cried." Parker didn't seem bothered by the fact that she'd just revealed something deeply personal. "I did it again, and again, and again, just because I could, because the world looks so much more interesting like this. Don't get me wrong, I still love money, I still love stealing, but..." she shook her head, hair brushing against Eliot's cheek, a feather light caress. "There are just some things that you can't describe to someone else, that you can't make others understand. Even if they find the courage to do it, sometimes they just can't see what's in front of their noses. It makes me sad." Parker's eyes slipped closed as she turned her face up to the sun, and like everything around them, Parker's features held a hint of gold.

"I understand now," Eliot said hoarsely, entranced by the figure Parker presented.

Parker made a low humming noise that traveled straight through Eliot. "I thought you might," she admitted.

They sat in silence for a few moments. It wasn't tense, but neither was it easy; with a sixth sense that Eliot hadn't previously been aware he possessed, he could tell Parker was on the edge of something momentous, and kept his council.

"Thank you, you know," Parker said suddenly, half turning so she could meet Eliot's eyes. "For everything."

"It's not-"

Parker cut him off with a kiss.

It was awkward. Parker had clearly never done this before, so she pressed a little too hard, bumping their noses together. Eliot hadn't done it in a while either, and he tilted his head a little more, trying to find the perfect way for their lips to fit together, the best way to make it better because this was _Parker_ , of all people, and Eliot had been in love with her for longer than he'd realized, he suspected. Parker made a little sound in the back of her throat and pressed her lithe body closer, winding her arms around his neck, tangling their legs in the process, and they side-slipped a little.

They laughed against each other's lips, then pulled back so they could right themselves. "Are you sure you want this?" Eliot asked finally, doubt dispelling some of the pleasure he'd gotten from Parker's kisses. Parker felt so alien and strange sometimes that Eliot wasn't sure what the right move was.

Parker made a thoughtful little humming noise, and then kissed him again, soft and quick and chaste. "I wasn't sure until we fell," she admitted, but didn't seem overly worried by the admission. "If I like you, and you like me, we can make it work," she told Eliot simply. "As long as we want to, I mean." She glanced at him shyly, off kilter. "You do want to, right? Be together?"

Eliot hastened to reassure her. "Of course!" he said, perhaps a little too loudly. His kiss had considerably less finesse than the last, but Parker didn't seem to mind, because she made the same little humming noise again that seemed to fill Eliot's body from the inside out. "It'll be a little weird, probably, especially at first," he warned, breaking the kiss, still so close to her. "And you'll have to tell me what you're comfortable with, and it's going to be awkward at times, and we'll have to let Nate and Sophie and Hardison know, and I'm _definitely_ going to train you in hand-to-hand because there's no way in hell I'm going to spend my time worrying about you, and we have to talk about other things, like apartments-"

Parker wrinkled her nose. "Talking. Boring," she sing-songed, and Eliot couldn't help the huff of laughter that escaped him. "We can do that later, right?"

"Yeah, Parker, we can do that later," Eliot agreed.

"Good," Parker murmured decisively. "Because now I want to kiss you some more."

"You won't hear me objecting," Eliot whispered back in a low voice that made Parker shiver in interesting ways. "But it might be more comfortable if we're not hanging in midair." A thought struck him, a cold sweat breaking out. "Um, Parker, how are we supposed to get back up?"

Parker's smile was wicked and devious and Eliot knew he would have to resign himself then and there to a lifetime of them. Somehow, it didn't seem too bad.

"Hold on!"

**Author's Note:**

> A rather belated birthday gift for [](http://hollow-echos.livejournal.com/profile)[hollow_echos](http://hollow-echos.livejournal.com/) because she is, quite simply, amazing. [](http://hollow-echos.livejournal.com/profile)[hollow_echos](http://hollow-echos.livejournal.com/), this is for all the late night conversations, for coercing me onto lj in the first place, for your patience and understanding, and for making me laugh- but it's also mostly because you've become one of my best friends in the entire world.
> 
> Finally moving this over to AO3!


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